If Daniel Radcliffe really wants to get rid of
his Harry Potter image, he's made the right choice playing poet Allen Ginsberg
in a prequel to "the Beat generation." As the movie proclaims from beginning,
what we see is a "true story," although we're not always sure what
version of that story to believe.
It's a lovingly recreated 1940 when
virgin/Jewish Allen Ginsberg goes off to Columbia University to study writing
and gets caught up in the lives of charismatic Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), druggie
William Burroughs (Ben Foster), and writer Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston). As the
group experiments with drugs and sex and writing poetry in a way never tried
before, they decide Lucien needs to be free of his stalker/teacher/boyfriend,
David Kammerer (played with creepy stares by Michael C. Hall). The murder we're
told from the beginning was real is David's. Just how it happened is the focus
of the film.
Director John Krokidas has a fondness for
closeups, loud sound transitions, and rich colors. Radcliffe's daring nude gay
sex scene, intercut with the murder and Burrough's drugging will probably get a
lot of press, but the film does give insight into four literary figures whose
friendship helps fuel On the
Road, Howl, and Naked Lunch.
Seen at the Chicago Film Festival last
Saturday, the crowd around me seemed very positive. I think it is definitely a film to see.
Kill Your Darlings *****
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