In 1950, Dylan Thomas came to America for his first tour on the college circuit. At the time, he was the Jim Morrison of poetry: adored and scandalous, intoxicated and intoxicating. In a 1959 issue of Partisan Review, Elizabeth Hardwick recalled the giddiness that would seize a campus before Hurricane Dylan made landfall: "Would he arrive only to break down on the stage? Would some dismaying scene take place at the faculty party? Would he be offensive, violent, obscene? These were alarming and yet exciting possibilities."

According to Set Fire to the Stars, the answers to Hardwick's questions were no, yes, and yes. A literary buddy movie in black and white, Stars follows the uptight, chain-smoking poetry professor John Brinnin (Elijah Wood) as he tries to manage the drunken chaos of Dylan's three-month tour. Thomas (Celyn Jones) gets kicked out of hotel rooms, vanishes for stretches of time, vomits in a bucket before one performance, sings lewd songs at the after-parties, slings faculty wives over his shoulder, and makes an attractive-looking ruckus. After one particularly bad bender, Brinnin takes him to the countryside to sober up—it isn't long before Thomas has coaxed Brinnin into the nearest diner to throw back drinks and charm the waitresses. Then he arranges a party with Shirley Jackson (Shirley Henderson) and her husband, Stanley Hyman (Kevin Eldon), with plenty more flirting and liquor to go around.

Jones plays the chubby hellion with brawny glee, psychologically shaking Wood's character by the lapels and trying to loosen him up a bit—get out of his head and in touch with his heart, that kind of thing. "It's about feeling something," Thomas advises in a moment of relative sobriety, "and allowing ourselves to feel it first before we start tearing it apart for answers." Brinnin learns to feel a little, and also manages to turn his guest's drinking down a notch or two as they converse, fight, and recline on their backs to stare at the sky—it's a coolheaded and slightly starchy version of a buddy movie, but a buddy movie nonetheless.

Some might object to Stars on the grounds that it makes severe alcoholism look like too much fun—though the movie itself is not. Written and directed by Andy Goddard, Stars tells its story from Brinnin's perspective, watching Thomas with a mixture of wonder and bafflement but without any revelations about the literary hero or his hauntingly deranged verses.

Wood's most lively performance comes at the very beginning of the film as Brinnin jumps from college to college, trying to sell them on the idea of hosting the poet. The faculties are all wary of Thomas, who already has, as one college official put it, "a reputation for roaring behavior that brought wives, mothers, and the London police running." But Wood—with his bow tie, sunglasses, and inevitable cigarette—assures them with the confidence and charm of a con man that everything will be fine.

Once Thomas shows up, Wood is mostly left to gape in astonishment and aim long, doleful gazes at the troubled poet as he romps around New England. Stars is diverting in its way, but never really—forgive me—catches fire.