Opening in the crowded London Underground shelter during the Blitz, The Edge Of Love recounts an inglorious incident in the topsy-turvy life of Dylan Thomas.

The garrulous and occasionally inebriated Welsh poet may be the soul of John Maybury's evocative wartime drama, but he is not the heartbeat. Instead, the writer-director adopts a similar approach to his extraordinary Francis Bacon biopic Love Is The Devil and observes creative genius from a distance; in this case, through the eyes of two women who loved Dylan with a passion that consumed, and very nearly destroyed, them.

The Edge Of Love is a beautiful, haunting film full of ugly, poisonous emotions, distinguished by mesmerising performances from its female leads. Keira Knightley has never been more compelling or heartbreaking as the poet's childhood sweetheart who is drawn back to him like a moth to the flame. Sienna Miller is equally formidable as Dylan's wife, who recognises the potential threat to her marriage and chooses to keep her friends close but her rival even closer.

Maybury's painterly eye ensures that The Edge Of Love is visually ravishing, contrasting colourful, cosmopolitan London with the grey, windswept valleys.

He silhouettes Knightley and Murphy's first embrace against the deep orange glow of fires raging across the bomb-scarred city and in a bold piece of editing, the birth of Knightley's child is intercut with harrowing scenes of an amputation in the trenches, where Murphy witnesses unspeakable horrors that seem to drive him further away from his wife.

As tempers fray, erupting in violence, the menage a quatre fractures and one lover realises that what the heart desires most is the one thing it must never have.

Romance/Drama. Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Matthew Rhys, Cillian Murphy. Director: John Maybury.