The juxtaposition of dreamy romantic fantasy and hardedged reality is one of the key conflicts that animates John Maybury’s fascinatingly rich and complex account of the troubled wartime love life of Dylan Thomas. Thomas is portrayed here by Matthew Rhys, star of the current TV hit Brothers and Sisters. Our beach belle is, of course, Keira Knightley – ravishing here as Thomas’s childhood sweetheart from Wales, Vera Philips. The pair rediscover one another in London, whilst both pursuing the nearest equivalent to an artistic career that wartime can offer them: she as a singer, he as a writer and narrator of propaganda films. Thomas is married to the force of nature that is Caitlin. Rather than see off the competition, Caitlin bonds with Vera over their shared claims on the poet’s body and soul. Sharman Macdonald’s masterful script queries the notion of the artist’s muse, the place of artists and intellectuals in time of war, and, devastatingly, the endless psychic reverbations of shell shock.