Set Fire to the Stars is what happens when performance and written word arrestingly compete for head billing. Goddard’s feature debut boasts the full enormity of its inspired source (Dylan Thomas’ ‘Love In The Asylum’), becoming almost incomprehensible in its impassioned grandeur. As it is said; feeling is first, understanding comes last.

It is in this vein that literary academic Brinnin (Wood) finds both his limit and ultimate frustration. As Thomas’ (Jones) profundity begins to appear less and less methodical in origin, it becomes increasingly evident that analysis and depth are, unfortunately, the same side of very different coins.

Summoning performances that saturate the screen, and dialogue that does just as much, Set Fire to the Stars proves to be as ambiguously affecting as its tortured source.

RATING: 4/5

INFORMATION

CAST: Elijah Wood, Celyn Jones, Shirley Henderson

DIRECTOR: Andy Goddard

WRITERS: Andy Goddard, Celyn Jones

SYNOPSIS: A literary academic is charged with accompanying renowned poet Dylan Thomas for his tour across the United States.