The creative process is an internal one. Inspiration, when it comes, is unique to each individual and takes place within the mind. This is why it's always been so hard to capture cinematically in movies about famous artists, and the Beat Generation drama is no different.
The fi lm tells the story of the beginnings of the Beats in World War II New York. Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) meets Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster), and Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston) and a new literary movement is born. The stuff about artistic inspiration is meh and feels like standard by-the-numbers biopic material.
However, the movie does excel in creating a vivid sense of atmosphere in WWII-era New York. In the fi lm's second half, when a murder occurs (it actually happened and you can look up the particulars on the Internet), the tempo does pick up and there are interesting tidbits about "honor slayings" and other forms of homophobia that were taken for granted in mid-20th century America.
Unless you're fascinated by the Beats, you can probably wait to catch this one on Netfl ix.
