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Email: davidnt@hotmail.co.uk
My paper on Dylan Thomas and The Edge of Love was published in the February 2013 issue of Cambria. It begins with Sharman Macdonald's comments on her script for the film ("it's a fiction…I made it up."). Then I describe how the relationship between Dylan and his Swansea friend, Vera Killick nee Phillips, was a good deal more interesting than Macdonald's fiction. .
Vera Killick nee Phillips
Vera and Dylan's grandparents farmed within the same square mile of the Llansteffan peninsula, so I hope the paper also leads to a better understanding of Dylan's family background there, adding to the material that I've assembled at https://sites.google.com/site/dylanthomaspeninsularity/home
Exploring Vera's family history has certainly helped me understand the depth of Dylan's roots in the families and farms at the sea-end of the peninsula. His mother's side of the family has been farming there for over two hundred years. Put another way, they had already been farming there for more than a hundred years at the date of Dylan's birth. His roots in that square mile run deep.
Work on the Phillips and Harries family trees has been a team effort, in which I was very much the junior member. I am especially grateful to Alun Davies, Susan Deacon and Elizabeth Richards for all their help and expertise. Their roots also run deep in that piece of land that Dylan could see across the Tâf from the Boat House.
Please contact me at davidnt@hotmail.co.uk if you have any questions or have further information you'd like to share. Suggestions and corrections are always welcome.
The Edge of Love came out in 2008. It starred Matthew Rhys as Dylan Thomas, Sienna Miller as Caitlin Thomas, Keira Knightley as Vera Killick and Cillian Murphy as William Killick. The film was directed by John Maybury and scripted by Sharman Macdonald.
The review aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes, reported that the film received a 34% "rotten" rating. The movie review aggregator, Metacritic, awarded the film a score of 39, denoting "generally unfavorable reviews". In Variety, Leslie Felperin commented: "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." Mark Kermonde described the script as inert and flawed.
Sienna Miller received a nomination as Best Supporting Actress at the 2008 British Independent Film Awards.
At the 2010 Vits Awards, it was given third place in the "Bottom 5 Movies". It was also nominated for "Worst Directing" and "Worst Script".