Lucien uses his moody charisma to pit David against Allen while never quite acknowledging his true feelings for either.Īs their relationship deepens, Allen and Lucien realize they both share emotionally troubled pasts and a passion for poetry. David apparently followed Lucien to New York, and now works as a janitor despite his showy intellectual pretensions. Hall), an older hanger-on who clearly resents Allen’s position as Lucien’s new sidekick. With his louche charm and androgynous blond beauty, Lucien is an object of fascination for shy, unsophisticated Allen, and soon he is drawn into Lucien’s hard-drinking, reefer-smoking, jazz-clubbing circle of friends, including WILLIAM BURROUGHS (Ben Foster), the dissolute scion of a wealthy family, and DAVID KAMMERER (Michael C. When Allen is accepted into Columbia, his father LOUIS (David Cross), a working-class poet, urges him to leave his emotionally ill mother NAOMI (Jennifer Jason Leigh) behind and head to New York to go pursue his own creative dreams.Īt Columbia, Allen finds stuffy tradition clashing with daringly modern ideas and attitudes-embodied by LUCIEN CARR (Dane DeHaan), whom he first encounters shouting a scandalous passage from Henry Miller atop a library study table. KILL YOUR DARLINGS is based on true events and characters.įor dutiful son ALLEN GINSBERG (Daniel Radcliffe), Columbia University is Mecca-a portal to art, intellect, culture, and freedom-everything hometown Patterson, New Jersey is not.

Kill Your Darlings by L.E. Harper