Howl (2011)

Anyone under the age of 40 will find it a little hard to imagine the power of the swear word before the late 1960's. Though of course, they did pop up in British films from the 30's and 40's but they were more like 'hell' and 'damn' instead of 's***'. I think Britain took a more open look with those type of words. the same can't be said about America who pretty much banned anything that had any vulgarisms.

Fortunately, the most famed of the best poets, Allen Ginsberg, didn't care much for the laws in America. Not only did Ginsberg use the F-word, he also admitted openly to doing the F-word with other men and enjoying it. Nevertheless, Ginsberg wasn't the one arrested for writing 'Howl', it was poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti who was charged with obscenity for publishing and selling it.

Howl is played out like a Docudrama but it's very disappointing to see directors Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein tell the story the way they have. James Franco (who seems to have his hands in everything at the moment, including writing poetry), I'm sure would of got on well with the real life Ginsberg and is the strongest player in the whole film. He channels Ginsberg well with a certain sympathy and charm. Unfortunately due to the fractured structure of the film, Franco is unable to develop the character enough to make the audience want to follow him.

The main problem is that every now and again Franco starts to read some of the poems from Howl and then  suddenly, the story cuts into animation. Franco will say words like 'trains' and boxcars', and then we get trains and boxcars appearing out of nowhere. Drooker's animation, by today's standards is very, very poor and totally unnecessary. It makes you wish the directors would just get on with it and tell the story.

On the upside it's a treat (if you're a poet fan) to hear Franco read out some of Ginsberg's work. Also the courtroom scenes are strong, which is not much of a surprise given the outstanding cast involved (John Hamm, David Strathairn). But those scenes are few a far between and despite a fairly moving last few scenes, Howl is to puzzling and frustrating to be truly enjoyable.

Howl is possibly worth a watch to see Franco and his best or if you're a fan or Allen Ginsberg. Everyone else should give this a miss.