Director: Aisling Walsh
Writer: Andrew Davies
Starring: Tom Hollander, Essie Davis, Phoebe Fox, Ewen Bremner
They say never meet your heroes. In the case of poet Dylan Thomas this appears to have been resolutely the case, if a new BBC biopic is to be believed.
Portrayed by Tom Hollander as a bloated and hopeless case, with the echo of a glint in his eye, A Poet In New York examines Thomas’s final days staggering around the bars and women of New York, leading up to his undignified exit in 1953. It takes a few minutes to adjust to Hollander as a debauched figure, especially if your main exposure to him has been via priest sitcom Rev, but his skilled performance soon draws you in. Hollander has a short stature but a way of exerting a sudden, deep and powerful hold on camera, a quality that has served him well in such diverse roles as an oily villain in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN to a stifled John Ruskin in Desperate Romantics. With his weathered, babyish face he’s a better fit for the feted wordsmith than Rhys Ifans, soon to appear in the same scenario for movie DOMINION. Given that the BBC announcer bills Thomas’s existence as that of a “rock star” the latter choice seems highly appropriate. This version purports to explore what made Thomas what he is, cutting through the epic boozing and glitterati-based fumblings, though the end result is a tad flat and the more lurid aspects dominate.
If nothing else, the film led me to find out more about the turbulent Welsh figure, often ascribed the mantle of “greatest living poet” in his lifetime. Watching the drama as a novice I found him a frustrating and hollow creation as a character. There is a sense throughout of screenwriter Andrew Davies (Pride & Prejudice) assuming prior knowledge and skirting over crucial details of Thomas’s background. The inclusion of flashbacks to his boyhood bullying are perfunctory and you really need to know who these people are. Instead the writer has opted for the brasher take of an American-based tale, with the WITHNAIL-like atmosphere of a spirit waiting to die. Thankfully the actual poems provide an essential kernel of truth – in particular his reading of “Rage, rage against the dying of the light!”, well-pitched following the death of Thomas’s father. Outside the text however there is a lack of substance and setting the action primarily in Wales with a family background before including the transatlantic jaunt as a later element of the story would have been stronger in my opinion.
Technically the production is very interesting. 1950s New York appears to have been evoked with a mix of archive footage, CGI and clever angles. I haven’t seen anything like it before and while it’s an impressive feat it also has a tendency to look sterile and the shots don’t linger enough to put you in the picture. Even one scene with Thomas walking down an authentic New York street would have been valuable. In terms of the supporting cast Ewen Bremner makes a suitably fawning but fragile John Brinnin. Brinnin’s book on Thomas, Dylan Thomas In America, is thought to have cemented the image of the “doomed poet” and seeing his treatment in the script you can understand why he might have been inclined to perform a hatchet job. Phoebe Fox is a composed presence as Liz Reitell, shepherding the hapless artist from one disaster to another.
If you’re going to have a flawed central character you require light and shade. Hollander’s performance, while the best thing in the film, is all misery and no company. It would help the story of a man who refused to send money to his family back home for it to provide some olive branch of insight as to why he did this. This doesn’t happen and Thomas becomes quite aggravating early on. It isn’t clear whether we’re supposed to find him vaguely endearing or not, though Hollander’s casting suggests we are.
The most interesting part comes toward the end, when Thomas’s embittered wife Caitlin (Essie Davis) breaks down at his deathbed after years of spite and bickering. His last hallucinatory thought is of his wife rowing away in a dinghy, a lasting image rendered slightly inconsequential by having no explanation – another example of Davies presuming audience knowledge as to how the relationship went. A meatier prospect could have been how these two met, built a home and then fell prey to the demands put upon a great man by his acolytes and himself. Instead we have some glimpses of a sad life spent in the thrall of one of art’s irredeemables who doesn’t really deserve half an hour of your time, let alone eighty.
[usr=3] Dylan Thomas: A Poet In New York was broadcast on BBC2 on Saturday 18th May. In the UK, you can find it on the iPlayer by clicking here.
