Set Fire to the Stars (NR)

synopsis

Based on true events, the film is about John Malcolm Brinnin, the New York academic who brought Dylan Thomas to America, the volatile celebrity poet who scandalized the Manhattan literati of the Fifties and challenged Brinnin's hero worship of his work. In the face of the Welsh poet's wilder excesses in the Big Apple, John has no choice but to hijack Dylan to a private retreat to get him ready for America. The days and nights that follow will change his life forever. Part literary biopic and - shot in cut-glass black-and-white - part love-letter to the American B-movies of the Forties and Fifties, Andy Goddard's debut feature is both a character driven chamber piece and a cautionary tale about the flytrap of meeting your heroes.