Set Fire To the Stars

Set Fire To The Stars

With the release of Set Fire The the Stars on a couple of days away, I thought I'd post my review of the biopic. I had the pleasure of seeing the film when it premiered at Edinburgh Film Festival in June. This also included a question and answer session with director and actor, Ceyln Jones and Elijah Wood.

This film is semi-biographical peice about Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas (played and co-wrote by Ceyln Jones). We follow the story of John Malcom Brinnin (Elijah Wood) as he attempts to get Thomas across America to give readings in universties. This turns out to be a lot more difficult than Brinnin gives it credit for, given Thomas' boisterious nature and his love of partying and drinking (far too much).

The beautiful high contrast monochrome, adds element of nostaligia and touch of artistic flare. Celyn Jones gives a excellent performance, a certain highlight of the film. Jones is a life long fan of the poet and it can truly be felt through the script and through his bolshy performance depicting the poet. It would have been only too easy for him to fall into playing the caricature. Instead he injects the film with much needed energy, without detracting from the more serious tones. This contrasts well with sutble performance given by Wood as Brinnin. The subtlty too Wood performance gives a good balance to the films narrative structure.

While this movie surrounds a small, destructive fragment of Thomas' life, I feel that actually its John M Brinnin that we discover in more depth. He is faced with the relisation that, perhaps, as the saying goes, you should never meet you idol. His charcater develops more during the screen time than Thomas' does. He begins by wanting to succeed on this venture, not only because he idolises Thomas but also because he wants to prove himself and further his career. But by the ends, it seems to me, that Brinnin forgtes about pretecting his career and moves to wanting to protect his friend.

So while the film develops enough to keep you from being bored and stylistically it is well made, it is the performances that really carry this movie. Narratively I feel something is missing, something got a little lost along the way. The unruly ways of Dylan Thomas are notable but somewhat neglected. Instead we noticably focus upon the frustration of Brenin, his disappointment in his idol and then his fight to succeed and save his friend. For me, the full force of Thomas' poetry is just not quite captured. We get elements of Dylan Thomas' persona, yet they do not seem to explored as deeply as I'd have expected.