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IMDbPro

Kill Your Darlings

  • 20132013
  • RR
  • 1h 44m
IMDb RATING
6.4/10
38K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
4,467
969
Daniel Radcliffe and Dane DeHaan in Kill Your Darlings (2013)
    While he is attending Columbia University in 1944, the young Allen Ginsberg’s life is turned upside down when he sets eyes on Lucien Carr, an impossibly cool and boyishly handsome classmate. Carr opens Ginsberg up to a bohemian world and introduces him to William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac.
Play trailer2:04
6 Videos
99+ Photos
BiographyDramaRomance
A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs.A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs.A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs.
IMDb RATING
6.4/10
38K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
4,467
969
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Director
      • John Krokidas
    • Writers
      • Austin Bunn(screenplay)
      • John Krokidas(screenplay)
    • Stars
      • Daniel Radcliffe
      • Dane DeHaan
      • Michael C. Hall
    Top credits
    • Director
      • John Krokidas
    • Writers
      • Austin Bunn(screenplay)
      • John Krokidas(screenplay)
    • Stars
      • Daniel Radcliffe
      • Dane DeHaan
      • Michael C. Hall
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 90User reviews
    • 188Critic reviews
    • 65Metascore
    • Awards
      • 5 wins & 12 nominations

    Videos6

    Theatrical Trailer
    Trailer 2:04
    Theatrical Trailer
    Kill Your Darlings
    Clip 1:30
    Kill Your Darlings
    Kill Your Darlings
    Clip 1:09
    Kill Your Darlings
    Kill Your Darlings
    Clip 1:33
    Kill Your Darlings
    Kill Your Darlings
    Clip 1:04
    Kill Your Darlings
    Kill Your Darlings
    Clip 1:21
    Kill Your Darlings

    Photos151

    Ben Foster in Kill Your Darlings (2013)
    Daniel Radcliffe in Kill Your Darlings (2013)
    Michael C. Hall in Kill Your Darlings (2013)
    Daniel Radcliffe, Nicole Signore, and Dane DeHaan in Kill Your Darlings (2013)
    Jack Huston and Dane DeHaan in Kill Your Darlings (2013)
    Jennifer Jason Leigh in Kill Your Darlings (2013)
    Daniel Radcliffe in Kill Your Darlings (2013)
    Elizabeth Olsen and Jack Huston in Kill Your Darlings (2013)
    Dane DeHaan in Kill Your Darlings (2013)
    David Cross and Daniel Radcliffe in Kill Your Darlings (2013)
    Daniel Radcliffe and Dane DeHaan in Kill Your Darlings (2013)
    Michael C. Hall and Daniel Radcliffe in Kill Your Darlings (2013)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Daniel Radcliffe
    Daniel Radcliffe
    • Allen Ginsberg
    Dane DeHaan
    Dane DeHaan
    • Lucien Carr
    Michael C. Hall
    Michael C. Hall
    • David Kammerer
    Ben Foster
    Ben Foster
    • William Burroughs
    Jack Huston
    Jack Huston
    • Jack Kerouac
    David Cross
    David Cross
    • Louis Ginsberg
    Jennifer Jason Leigh
    Jennifer Jason Leigh
    • Naomi Ginsberg
    Elizabeth Olsen
    Elizabeth Olsen
    • Edie Parker
    John Cullum
    John Cullum
    • Professor Steeves
    Brenda Wehle
    Brenda Wehle
    • Permissions Librarian
    Erin Darke
    Erin Darke
    • Gwendolyn
    Craig Chester
    Craig Chester
    • Businessman
    Lenore Harris
    • DA Secretary
    Mark Ethan
    Mark Ethan
    • Campus Guard
    Zach Appelman
    Zach Appelman
    • Luke Detweiler
    David Rasche
    David Rasche
    • Dean
    Quinlan Corbett
    Quinlan Corbett
    • Billeting Officer
    Dawn Newman
    • Jazz Singer
    • Director
      • John Krokidas
    • Writers
      • Austin Bunn(screenplay) (story)
      • John Krokidas(screenplay)
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      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 movies, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011), 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.
    • Goofs
      Jack Kerouac, upon his arrest, contacts his father and we hear an American accent on the line. Kerouac's parents were French-speaking Quebecois and it took Jack until his late teens to fully master English, which he spoke with a slight Québec lilt; it is thus unlikely his father and he would have spoken in English, much less in a General American accent.
    • Quotes

      Allen Ginsberg: Some things, once you've loved them, become yours forever./And if you try to let them go... /They only circle back and return to you./They become part of who you are...

      Lucien Carr: ...or they destroy you.

    • Crazy credits
      The first part of the end credits run over the top of photographs of the real Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Lucien Carr and William S. Burroughs.
    • Connections
      Featured in Film '72: Episode dated 3 December 2013 (2013)
    • Soundtracks
      Lilli Marlene
      Written by Norbert Schultze, Hans Leip, Tommie Connor

      Performed by Anne Shelton, Stanley Black and his Orchestra

      Published by Edward B Marks Music Company

      Courtesy of Decca Music Group Limited under license from Universal Music Enterprises

    User reviews90

    Review
    Top review
    6/10
    Review: Kill Your Darlings/Night Film Reviews www.nightfilmreviews.com
    It's no surprise that some of the most effective works of the Beatnik generation were born in the scuzzy halls of jazz bars; soaked with whiskey induced grammar, intoxicated with muddled philosophies, their pages bathed in the permanent smell of tobacco. Much like the work of Lewis Carroll, drugs, alcohol, and culture were catalysts towards the ideology of destroying the old and building the new. The movement itself was a rousing feat with great cultural ramifications. The film itself is a work that sometimes trades in the grainy for flashy; rupturing not only the pattern that the authors were trying to break, but the whole tone of the film as well.

    If I pitched you a story about the Beat generation led by Harry Potter, the new Harry Osborne, a guy from X-Men and the guy from Boardwalk Empire with half his face missing, I'm sure the reaction would be pretty great. Unfortunately for audiences, the subject matter submits to a truly unauthentic, lack lustre festival formula and abandons creativeness and a unique vision for a familiar narrative that disregards great historical figures, making them caricatures within a lame murder/mystery genre film.

    Daniel Radcliffe plays Allen Ginsberg, one of the most famous and recognizable poets in the American culture. Radcliffe continues to shed his 'Hogwarts alumni' image by taking risky, unconventional and edgy roles that all share in their seemingly controversial nature. Upon his acceptance and arrival into Columbia University, Ginsberg is in search of something offbeat. Ironically enough, Ginsberg is lured into the residency of Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), an intoxicated sociopath with an obsession for self-destruction, always curious for the taste of the complicated and unexplainable.

    Together, Carr and Ginsberg start a small revolution in their heads, but without so many words. With the help of an unlimited supply of cannabis and some Johnny Walker, the two eventually enlist of the help of William Burroughs (Ben Foster) and a young Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston) and begin their uprising. Through constant disruptions by the reputation and prestige Columbia University holds so true and dear to its heart, the constantly stoned literary bandits are engulfed into a world of lovers, obsession and murder, intent on revolutionizing literature.

    Kill Your Darlings starts bold and overwhelming, demanding utmost attention. Unfortunately, once attention is given, the film cannot hold its grip and deliver a rousing, culturally relevant story about some of the most influential figures in contemporary literature in the last century. Blending the lines of drug induced fantasy and reality, Kill Your Darlings is a story of breaking the formulaic path, distrusting all conventional and predictable beats of rhyme and meter, but sadly becomes a textbook festival entry with a forgettable conclusion.

    The term to 'kill your darlings' is one that suggests destroying all the conventions and comforts of the mundane, reinventing yourself, and throwing inhibition to the wind and finding creativity will inspire instances of utter uniqueness. Kill Your Darlings, although sometimes confident, is an obsessive and complicated re-telling of enigmatic characters placed in a deceitful and over-dramatized tragedy of murder. With the rich historical and cultural imprint of these feisty literary pioneers, so much of the busy murder antics is clearly overshadowing the brilliant opportunity to showcase the likes of Carr, Ginsberg, Burroughs and Kerouac.

    Mixing the potential monologue moments of Weir's 1989 Dead Poets Society with the tone and ambiance of Salle's 2004 masterpiece The Motorcycle Diaries, Kill Your Darlings becomes a self- inflicted suicide of a film with a tantalizing and promising narrative. Don't get me wrong, the performances are top notch; DeHaan is magnificent as Carr and Radcliffe is radiant as Ginsberg. However, while most of the top-billed cast is ravishing, and supporting cast is spot on, the film feels drowned in the water with average narrative clichés weighing it down.

    While the antics of the underbelly of the New York Greenwich Village scene have been explored, battered, bruised and forever changed by the provocative and decadent Beat Movement, Kill Your Darlings remains a tame snippet of the life of these amazing authors and thinkers. Destined to be an example of a complicated festival biography attempt, the film will positively spark deep discussion. Kill Your Darlings repeats the initial reaction to Carr's response to Ginsberg's complicated life, "Perfect. I love complicated." Hopefully next time, an autobiographical cinematic take on the origins of the Beat Generation will be less gimmicky and more focused on the howling affect these fascinating individuals had on the world of literature, art, and our contemporary culture as a whole.
    helpful•29
    23
    • lucasnochez
    • Dec 1, 2013

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • September 19, 2013 (Croatia)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Official sites
      • Official Facebook Page
      • Official site
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Giết Người Yêu Dấu
    • Filming locations
      • Columbia University, New York City, New York, USA
    • Production companies
      • Killer Films
      • Benaroya Pictures
      • Outpost Studios
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $1,030,064
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $53,452
      • Oct 20, 2013
    • Gross worldwide
      • $1,877,924
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 44 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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