Sure, Mickey Rourke’s character in Barfly is called Henry Chinaski, and not Charles Bukowski, but I think we can all see past that very thin curtain. Hell, Rodney Dangerfield’s Back to School has more Dylan Thomas verse than this film. His work hasn’t been this trivially used since Disney replaced rap music with “Do not go gentle into that good night” in Dangerous Minds 20 years ago. Other than that instance, you’ll bring more knowledge of Thomas’ poetry and prose to the theater than you’ll get from this movie. We only hear one poem in its entirety, spoken by the entire cast in montage. Sometimes the tinkly piano is accompanied by a shot of Elijah Wood staring at us in rapture. Critic Odie Henderson was particularly disappointed by the lack of use of Thomas’s poetry:Īt one point, Brinnin tells Thomas “you’re scared of your talent.” The movie is equally afraid, because every time Thomas starts reciting that which made him famous, he is drowned out by loud, tinkly piano music on the soundtrack. But while some of the acting is solid, the film doesn’t go deep enough. This is both a film about Dylan Thomas and a film about (and written by) the poet and critic John Malcolm Brinnin, based on his 1956 memoir Dylan Thomas in America, which describes what happened when Brinnin brought Thomas to the country to do a college lecture tour.
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