Review of Kill Your Darlings (2013) by Eric A — 24 Nov 2013

Although I really wanted to like this movie, I found at times my mind drifted as Daniel Radcliffe would morph from Allen Ginsberg into a certain young man with a lightning bolt on his forehead. So when you see Daniel.

..I mean Allen Ginsberg exit Hogwarts...oh, I mean Columbia University....well, you get the picture....It really is not Radcliffe's fault. Actually it is the approach of John Krokidas & Austin Bunn as they turn a riveting story about the revolutionaries of American literature William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, & Jack Kerouac into a version of The Breakfast Club.

..oh, you thought I was going to say...Harry Potter did you not. Well...this also might be the case, because the screenwriters create a montage quality throughout...bits & pieces...and really do not capture the words of these men completely.

..Yes, they were wild and disregarded the rules of writing...yes, Kerouac's work is scatological, but really there should have been a build to the Riverside murder that would have culminated into a wonderful psychological study.

Yet they avoid to go any deeper than a teen angst level. So when these great authors tamper with the Columbia library, you feel you see Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, and Anthony Michael Hall cause a ruckus.

The music also becomes a tribute to the 80s during this scene. Only one scene did they capture any iconic transformation as Radcliffe as Ginsberg sits on the steps after his mother is taken to the institution.

Of course, earlier they captured another iconic moment as Harry Potter leaves the halls of Hogwarts...I mean Columbia...to go to Honeydukes... I mean a party with Lucius Malfoy...I mean David Kammerer.

..and falls for ....Oh, Dumbledore!!!! You know what I mean. (Definitely read Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs and there are books on the Riverside Park murder. I find it fascinating).