Set Fire to the Stars

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It’s a nice enough, pleasant enough film with a couple solid performances. But when you’re making a movie about a man as unique, profound, and complex as Dylan Thomas, and you have nothing to say about him, you don’t have much of a movie.

Village Voice by Alan Scherstuhl

An energetic, well-acted, handsomely mounted b&w literary tell-all whose script would be laughed out of the room by its famous subjects.

Slant Magazine by Chuck Bowen

At least it doesn't make the biopic mistake of attempting to check off every moment of a man's life over the course of a few hours' worth of running time.

The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

An exercise in tasteful pointlessness, shot in flat black and white and scored (by Gruff Rhys, of all people) with tinkling piano and sawing strings that evoke nothing so much as an aura of cut-rate class.

The Dissolve by Jen Chaney

Visually striking, meticulously rendered, a tiny bit pretentious, and emotionally inscrutable.

New York Daily News by Joe Neumaier

High art swings sort of low in this watchable but thematically repetitive drama.

Observer by Rex Reed

A harrowing but tedious chronicle of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas’ time in America in the 1950s.

Movie Nation by Roger Moore

The result is wintry and melancholy, “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” or “Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night” in tone. And because of that, it’s a trifle duller than the man himself surely must have been.

New York Post by Sara Stewart

Andy Goddard’s feature debut is shot stylishly in black and white, but deals in themes that feel equally retro.

The New York Times by Stephen Holden

Set Fire to the Stars barely skims the surface of characters you wish had been given more dimension, but as a snapshot of postwar academia and its pretensions, it exerts a creepy fascination.