ALL ABOARD THE BIPOLAR EXPRESS.........POETS OFF THEIR MEDS IN "TOUCHED WITH FIRE".....

Touched  With Fire (2015)    Before anyone accuses us of getting snarky about Bipolar Disorder.......our two best friends from college days have spent their adult lives suffering through it.........

                 They've lived through all the harrowing ups and downs.........the manic highs and the terrible, depressives lows.

                  It's a brutal disease to endure for both the victims and their loves ones......

                  Which may explain why we're three years late catching up to this superbly acted but artistically self-indulgent film about two Bipolar-afflicted poets (Luke Kirby, Katie Holmes) who attempt, against all odds, a precarious love affair.......

                  We long avoided this one for the simple reason that we didn't need to see Bipolar miseries depicted on screen.......we saw more than enough of the daily battles our best buds were going through......

                  And now having dutifully watched "Touched With Fire", we're still not sure it was necessary viewing.....

                 Director Paul Dalio, a Bipolar victim himself, naturally gravitated to showing us his characters many manic episodes..........more cinematic, no doubt.  (Even the most dedicated Independent film lovers wouldn't want to see a Bipolar patient during one of their 'lows',  stuck in their room and in bed for four months at a time.  Trust us.....this happens.)

                 Holmes and Kirby give it everything they've got........and they break your hearts. In a more disciplined, high profile film, performances like theirs might at least guarantee them Academy Award nominations......(a la Jennifer Lawrence in "Silver Lining Playbook")

                But their director doesn't seem interested in anything more than a slow, scenic, guided tour through their emotional agonies..........he may have a worthy discussion point about the long list of brilliant artists, writers and poets who've produced their immortal works of genius under the cloud of Bipolar.......but he never finds a way to dramatize it.

                Would we still get "Moby Dick" and "The Great Gatsby" if Melville and Fitzgerald were on Lithium?  Dalio trots out a real life author who says yes to our young lovers, but this clumsy sequence plays like an outtake from a documentary instead of a compelling drama.

                 And the film's pacing and structure is so slack, we found ourselves checking our watches rather than worrying about Kirby and Holmes' ultimate fates.

                Wonderful work from the actors (including Griffin Dunne, Bruce Altman and Christine Lahti as their pained, worried parents).......but the film's more about director Dalio unburdening himself with visual flourishes and montages rather than connecting with an audience.  2 stars..(**)