Director: John Krokidas
Talent: Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, Michael C. Hall, Ben Foster
Release Date: 6th December 2013
You could be forgiven for assuming Kill Your Darlings to be just another hagiography of the Beat Generation, full of attractive actors with period haircuts fighting perfectly reasonable university administrators. But John Krokidas’ debut is a surprisingly bolder, less nostalgic story (the smattering of crusty old deans notwithstanding).
The film tells the story of a murder committed by Beat Generation hanger-on Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), in which Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs were implicated as accomplices. However, it’s Carr’s relationship with Alan Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) that becomes the director’s main investigation, preferring to dramatise this intense, coercive and ultimately incomplete attraction ahead of the violence and intrigue.
Shot with restraint and performed convincingly, the film latches on to a story stronger than a mere reassertion of the supposed genius of the real life characters. And while it does contain some measure of that swooning biographical fluff, there’s something confidently different to be gleaned here as well. – MH
