Kill Your Darlings

I just saw this film at Tribeca--Bjorne and most of the cast were there. He is charming and totally gorgeous, but even so, I went into this thinking it was likely to be either silly or pretentious. Oh, it is neither! The production values are tremendous, especially considering how low the budget was for this film, and the acting is uniformly superb. But fundamentally, it is a tremendously cool FILM--not a story that could translate well to the page or the stage, since visuals, dialogue and nuance are so essential. It's entertaining just as a road movie with a lot of quirky, lovable characters, but it works on many levels as allegory/metaphor, as semi-autobiography, or as fantasy. He's woven the typically American movie characteristics of lots of action and a big canvas with the Swedish sense of reserve and surrealism. Go see this whenever or wherever you can--you'll leave the theater with a smile on your face, and images and ideas that will stay with you!

I thought with main stream stars like John Laroquette, Julie Benz and Lolita Davidovich in Kill Your Darlings I might be in store for a decent comedy drama. Nothing was further from the truth. The swede Bjorne Lawson both wrote and directed this downer of a movie.

The story is about a few people who are under Dr. Bangley's (played by John Laroquette) psychiatric care. Heck, even Dr. Bangley's own 14 year old daughter (played by Skye McCole Bartusiak) is in need of some serious therapy but Dr. Bangley just doesn't have any time to spare her while he is peddling his newly released book.

Actor Fares Fares (yes that is his real name) plays a doting absentee father who gets hired as a gun toting hoodlum assigned to take a troubled six foot transvestite and a bored suicidal housewife through the desert on a road trip to eventually meet up with their psychiatrist Dr. Bangley in Las Vegas for his book signing. On a separate journey through the desert we also have Lolita Davidovich who is introduced to us only by the name Lola. Lola hooks up with a depressed and suicidal hamburger photographer (that is his specialty, photographing hamburgers for ad campaigns) named Erik (played by Andreas Wilson) whose real aspiration is to become a serious writer and author. Both Lola and Erik have a few hangups of their own and as they agree to go on a road trip together they commence sharing their inner feelings and demons with each other while the story becomes more and more surreal and ludicrous.

The road trip of these several characters through the desert is nothing short of boredom. I would have thought troubled people who need the assistance of a psychiatrist would be under medication but all we see and hear is nothing but blather, more blather, and a very boring story line. If I was forced to watch any more of this film I may have become suicidal myself.

Save your money and your time. This one is not worth watching at all.

A burnt-out Swedish fast-food photographer (Wilson) working in Los Angeles dreams of making a film that deals with and addresses to explore people's suicidal tendencies, but for him to obsess about it seems not enough to give him any artistic inspiration. Out of the blue, a mysterious woman (Davidovich) decides to sweep him off his feet, promising him a road trip from L.A. to L.V. that would gift him that much-needed creative spark.

What director/writer Björne Larson has managed to set up a "PG-rated" piss-take (actually R-rated for the profanity) on the public's fascination with the prevalent reality-TV culture with an undercurrent of a cautionary tale for wannabes blinded by the glitz of the Hollywood mega-circus. The story and script hold well in putting the filmmaker's sentiments across if not only seeming to paint a veneer finish for the themes explored. But solid execution nevertheless, from cinematography, editing, the works. Just don't expect a spectacular depiction of Las Vegas because although the story predominantly revolves there, much of that never left on the cutting room floor, it seems.

There's also a brilliant juxtaposition of characters in the story that serves the narrative well. An excellent ensemble of North American and Swedish actors never hammed their way throughout a film despite streaks of eccentricity in the film althroughout. There's that naivete that Wilson exudes for the protagonist hungry for any poetic inspiration and gives a splendid departure from his previous performance a few years back in the Academy-Award-nominated foreign language film Ondskan. Davidovich meanwhile provides the assured, knowing entity in the film that guides the young man through the semiarid backwoods, an enthralling one that is unmistakably a gender-flip of the Dean Moriarty character in Kerouac's seminal novel and the definitive roman à clef, On the Road.

Props also to Larroquette as the wannabe celebrity psychologist having difficulties dealing with an uncooperative, rebellious teenage daughter, and Germann, his assistant, acting in his best interest to facilitate their slide into reality-TV stardom. Together with the shrink's patients: Skarsgård, who looks like a tall and beefed-up Julia Roberts with all that wig and make-up, and Benz, a washout young mother, who were both graced with the ineptitude in trying to off themselves, both carrying just that right amount of endearing qualities for their respective clingy characters. As the incompetent chauffeur but doting father to his daughter, Fares' character suffers from being yet another two-dimensional character too many for the film. He could have at least benefited from a few more lines of back-story dialogue, all to complete the cocktail mix of clashing personalities. It's just a few let-downs in the film that further cements this film's place in the cinematic world as a gateway drug for cinematic works like, On the Road, Easy Rider, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or Thelma & Louise.

The world could never not have any use for films with these kinds of stories, a watered-down version it may be or one can say derivative of the classic road movies, it's always of use for those who want a gradual measured descent in exploring such hard-hitting issues, the hard-to-swallow ones which always need the grittiness to keep it afloat. So, as always, forewarned is forearmed.

My rating: C-plus.

maby it could have been better if the Swedish cast had been limited to one character only - the Swedish wannabee writer. then there would have been no pretend-to-be-from-America-when-I'm-not necessary.

then perhaps the cultural collision would have added flavor of refinement - instead of making the whole thing into a sleazy staged-to-look-good burger with lots of color - but no taste at all.

Don't they realize that the clear Swedish tone in the American characters played by swedes gets in a bad light of contrast when directly compared to the original in form of famous American actors playing in the same movie??? Or is this some kind of Nordic belief of being "better then the original" that is showing up in overtones?

the script is OK as such - i have seen great actors play in movies based on scripts much worse written.

Alexander Skarsgård, who plays the transsexual homicidal patient, seems actually think that makeup and some wig by itself is going to do the job of turning him into a intriguing transsexual character.

but off course - hes name must have made some money for the producers - usually I'm sure its not worthy to base your thoughts on that its because hes the son of Hollywood actor Stellan Skaarsgard, but in this case - bearing in mind the just OK script and the bad acting performance that is offered by the Swedish part of the cast in general - its hard not to think that the skarsgård name might have been an important factor in the recruitment of the more famous parts of the American cast.