Kill Your Darlings Information

Kill Your Darlings is a 2013 American biographical drama film directed by John Krokidas in his feature film directorial debut. The film had its world premiere at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival garnering positive first reactions. It is scheduled to be shown at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, before having a limited theatrical North American release on October 18, 2013.

Plot

David Kammerer's murder by Lucien Carr in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs.

Cast

• Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg
• Elizabeth Olsen as Edie Parker
• Dane DeHaan as Lucien Carr
• Michael C. Hall as David Kammerer
• Ben Foster as William Burroughs
• Jennifer Jason Leigh as Naomi Ginsberg
• David Cross as Louis Ginsberg; Cross himself previously portrayed Allen Ginsberg in the film I'm Not There.
• Kyra Sedgwick as Marian Carr
• Jack Huston as Jack Kerouac
• David Rasche as Dean
• John Cullum as Professor Steeves

Production

In 2008, while performing the Broadway play Equus, Daniel Radcliffe auditioned and got the part of Allen Ginsberg. Radcliffe went on to film the last two Harry Potter films, Deathly Hallows " Part 1 and Part 2, and with him unavailable for filming, Chris Evans, Jesse Eisenberg, and Ben Whishaw were cast without Radcliffe. Shortly after, financing for the film fell through. When director John Krokidas started again with the film, he offered the role of Allen Ginsberg back to Radcliffe.

Release

Critical reaction

Upon its premiere, Kill Your Darlings received critical acclaim, earning a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 8.2/10, based on an aggregation of 9 reviews.

Reviewing Kill Your Darlings after its showing at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, critic Damon Wise of The Guardian lauded the film for being "the real deal, a genuine attempt to source the beginning of America's first true literary counterculture of the 20th century." Kill Your Darlings, wrote Wise, "creates a true sense of energy and passion, for once eschewing the clacking of typewriter keys to show artists actually talking, devising, and ultimately daring each other to create and innovate. And though it begins as a murder-mystery, Kill Your Darlings may be best described as an intellectual moral maze, a story perfectly of its time and yet one that still resonates today." Wise awarded the film four out of five stars in its review.

Justin Chang of Variety wrote, "A mysterious Beat Generation footnote is fleshed out with skilled performances, darkly poetic visuals and a vivid rendering of 1940s academia in "Kill Your Darlings." Directed with an assured sense of style that pushes against the narrow confines of its admittedly fascinating story, John Krokidas' first feature feels adventurous yet somewhat hemmed-in as it imagines a vortex of jealousy, obsession and murder that engulfed Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac in the early days of their literary revolution."

Accolades

Year	Award	Category/Recipient	Result	Reference
2013	Palm Springs International Film Festival	Directors to Watch
	Sundance Film Festival	Grand Jury Prize