But movies about literary heroes like Dylan Thomas suffer from the fact there’s little actually to see. Maybury is our director here too, but there are no such pyrotechnics. Film-makers have never really resolved the problem of how to make the written word come alive, and so they resort to stilted recreations of texts, or flat-footed fragments in voice-over, which is what we get here. There are short extracts from seven of Thomas’s poems, which are meant, in Maybury’s words, to act “almost like a Greek chorus echoing elements of the storyline as it progresses”. This is to concede that it’s that storyline which is ultimately most important, and that the writing simply isn’t enough; for literary figures to work as movie subjects, it’s best if there is some extra-curricular gimmick, whether it be dementia (Iris), suicide (Sylvia) or a crazy wife (Tom and Viv).

Sexual affairs and romanticised heavy drinking such as Thomas’s don’t in themselves really cut the mustard, especially if the characters live in adjoining bungalows. Your actors therefore become all-important. The Edge of Love, which is set during the Second World War when Thomas was writing scripts for government propaganda films, has two modish names: Sienna Miller as the fast and loose Caitlin, and Keira Knightley as the childhood sweetheart turned cabaret singer Vera Phillips, who comes back into his life while the bombs fall on Fitzrovia. All the nice girls love an artist, and with Thomas in common the two bond. The intention seems to be for us to see him through their eyes; it is their film, if not really their story, and the casting of Thomas himself (Matthew Rhys) feels almost like an afterthought. Those unacquainted with the poet will be at a loss to see what these women find so compelling in this boorish and, as he’s played here, frankly rather dreary figure. Rhys apparently slaved over tapes to get the voice right when reading pieces from “Lament” and “Love in the Asylum”, but I would be surprised if it inspired viewers to seek out more of the poetry, in the same way that one small snippet of “Funeral Blues” in Four Weddings and a Funeral caused a rush on Auden.