2013
Young Alan Ginsberg meets some toxic personalities at university, the most intoxicating being Lucien Carr. As the first year progresses, sexuality get questioned, books ripped up and a new way of writing takes seed culminating in a murder.
I have to say that when I first watched this in the cinema I found it all encompassing. The story kept me gripped and propelled me into another place. In this respect it was everything I asked for in a film.
However in retrospect it was hardly anything new. It used many cliches of ways to show people on drugs by using a jump cut of them running around, and reminded me of nothing so much as The Perks of being a Wallflower. It was similarly a coming of age drama.
However this is not to say I didn't enjoy it still. It got me thinking about these self absorbed people and told me more about these people who, if I am honest, I had the sketchiest ideas of who they were. It was a wonderfully indulgent study of some self destructive people. I would say it was guilty of romanticizing the characters, but that didn't detract from the fun.
I would say that there was a danger of choosing names over substance when casting. However I found Daniel Radcliffe was very good and believable as Alan Ginsberg (although I admit I cringed when he mentioned the word 'expelled' in the heads office). Dane Dehaan was suitably ill and self destructive.
All in all it was a fun film, though if I was looking for a less biased, more in depth exploration of the Beat poets, I would search elsewhere.
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