Director: John Krokidas
Talent: Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, Michael C. Hall, Ben Foster
Release Date: 25 June 2014 (DVD Premiere)

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 practical university administrators. But John Krokidas’ debut is a unexpectedly bolder, less reflective 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 core investigation, preferring to embellish this intense, coercive and ultimately incomplete attraction ahead of the violence and intrigue.

Shot with restraint and performed believably, the film latches on to a story stronger than a mere reassertion of the alleged genius of the real life characters. And while it does possess some measure of that swooning biographical fluff, there’s something assertively different to be gleaned here as well.

Words by Michael Healy