The Edge of Love 2008

Ben Mankiewicz, At the Movies: It felt like a lighting class, not a movie. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: For all its vivid evocation of its characters' tomorrow-we-die bonhomie, the film finally never quite convinces viewers of its central subject: the sisterly, almost sapphic bond between Vera and Caitlin. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The Edge of Love is the sort of muddled melodrama that has little to say about love, or anything else. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: Like a museum piece, placing historical figures in frozen positions, and asking us to judge them as the curators do. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: This may be Knightley's first truly mature performance. Too bad it arrives wrapped in doggerel. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: The Edge of Love has, as they say, all the tools, all the elements that usually make for success. It ought to be coaxing superlatives from all and sundry, but instead it leaves a bitter, unsatisfying aftertaste that lingers in the mind. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The best thing The Edge of Love could do for you is to send you back to Thomas's poetry. Dash this folderol. Open Under Milk Wood. Read more

Melissa Anderson, L.A. Weekly: Director John Maybury showed a defter hand with the artist biopic in his 1998 Francis Bacon film, Love Is the Devil. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: While Thomas fans will regret seeing their literary hero reduced to a generic drunk, even those awaiting the aforementioned bathtub scene will find it barely worth the effort. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: The movie makes for an engaging enough period piece. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: A stagy, arty, and uncompelling account of the Welsh writer and his menage-y relations with his boozy Irish wife and his young Welsh girlfriend. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The Edge of Love holds a lot of promise in its first hour and never completely falls apart, but it's ultimately not the movie it might have been. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The Edge of Love is literate and often lovely to look at, but unless you're requesting an off-key bohemian rhapsody, do not go gentle into that good theater. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: Read more

Leslie Felperin, Variety: While the period drama has several redeeming features, tonally it's all over the map, veering between artsy stylization and hum-drum, sometimes almost twee melodrama. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: Occasionally, Angelo Badalamenti's fine score will pleasantly remind you of Mulholland Drive. Knightley and Miller's pseudo-sapphic tub-splashing will not. Read more