This movie follows the story of Allen Ginsberg, a well-known figure of Beat Generation, who studies at Columbia University in 1944, when he is involved in a murder for his best friend and sent to prison before his foundation in literature.
The best thing about the enthralling, super-smart Kill Your Darlings is director John Krokidas's ability to capture the excitement of young men's minds on fire.
Krokidas' film takes a wisely neutral view of the tale, meaning that we get to both revel in the lads' transgressions and see how all this indulgence can turn sour.
Bursting with hipster attitude and New York atmosphere, the fact-based "Kill Your Darlings" is a coming-of-age chronicle that morphs into a crime story without missing a beat.
Few [Harry] Potter fans will be tempted to chance their luck while most adults will be left with fearsomely bright but relatively unlovable characters.
Dramatizing a passion for the written word on film can be tricky, but in his feverish Kill Your Darlings, first-time director John Krokidas brings creative desire to life with vigor and emotion.
Beat movies are just a sign that a new wave of such whiners has arrived to see them, and, because movies take years to make, is probably already progressing beyond the adolescent obsessions that the moviemakers thought to capitalize on.
Overall the movie seems to wander, like the worst excesses of free verse, needing a little structure to rein it in.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
November 14, 2013
"Kill Your Darlings" is a true-crime murder mystery, a love letter to the wild-living artists of the Beat Generation, and a portrait of the artist as an adolescent.
Kill Your Darlings is by no means perfect, but it's an ambitious and promising first film that gives a handful of young actors the chance to work with a director who has a great deal on his mind.
The sensual chemistry between Radcliffe and Dane DeHaan is fantastic, just occasionally upstaged by Ben Foster, who does a great job capturing the voice and mannerisms of the dry Burroughs.
