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James Franco Plays the Gay Poet Allen Ginsberg in "Howl"

Showtimes at the New Coral Gables Art Cinema (260 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables, FL 33134)

Fri 10/22 - 7:00, 9:00 & 11:00 pm

Sat 10/23 - 1:00, 5:00, 9:00 & 11:00 pm

Sun 10/24 - 3:00, 5:00 & 7:00 pm

Mon 10/25 - 5:30 & 7:30 pm

Tue 10/26 - 7:30 & 9:30 pm

Wed 10/27 - 5:30 pm &  9:30 pm

Thu 10/28 - 7:30 pm & 9:30 pm

"Howl" 

-reviewed by Warren Day

In a business where almost everyone follows the parade, James Franco is definitely marching to a different drummer.

His career path defies any easy description. This year he's appeared already in such dissimilar films as "Date Night" and "Eat, Pray, Love," played himself on "30 Rock," performed what he called performance art on the soap "General Hospital," directed an inside documentary about "Saturday Night Live," created an Oscar-buzzed performance in the upcoming November release "127 Hours," and now enacts one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century in "Howl."  If that isn't enough diversity for 12 months, he finished a MFA in writing at Columbia University in June, had several short stories published, posed in drag for a magazine cover, completed a starring role in a prequel to "Planet of the Apes," and in September began studying for his Ph.D. in English Literature at Yale. In his spare time he paints and recently exhibited at an art museum in Los Angeles. To call him an overachiever is to understate the case.

And in the movie "Howl," he's almost a one-man show. 

The film divides into three intertwining parts: (1) Allen Ginsberg reading his counterculture poem "Howl" for the first time in public, (2) Ginsberg being interviewed by an unseen reporter, and (3) The obscenity trial that resulted when "Howl" was published. All of this takes place in the uptight, conformist 1950s when even Liberace and Tennessee Williams wouldn't admit they were gay.

The trouble with that structure is there's almost no interaction between the characters, because they don't so much converse as give pronouncements. Even with some vigorous animation covering most of the poem reading, it makes for a rather static film about a man who was anything but static.

Ginsberg created out of street language and free verse poetry a jazz riff that gave voice to his post war generation.  The film may aspire to unconventional storytelling and be a jazz riff of its own, but it fails to connect like Ginsberg did so powerfully.

Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, the film creators, were responsible for the award-winning documentaries, "The Times of Harvey Milk" and "The Celluloid Closet," and they've directed and structured this movie like a documentary, thus losing some of its storytelling punch by having a bunch of talking heads tell us what happened rather than showing it in a dramatic way.    

For one example, we're told Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky started a lifelong relationship in 1954, but there's not a single scene where we hear them talk to each other and see firsthand what they meant to each other. 

The talking heads do compose an impressive cast, even if they're mainly bit parts in the court scenes. They include Jon Hamm, Mary Louise Parker, Treat Williams, David Strathairn, and Jeff Daniels. 

Having been around the real Allen Ginsberg several times, I first thought that James Franco was miscast, but I knew the middle-aged icon and not the struggling artist in his twenties. Franco captures the cadence of his unique voice, as well as his isolation and artistic drive, and with the horn-rimmed glasses and unkempt hair he looks amazingly like the 1950s Ginsberg. It's a notable achievement in an overachiever's exemplary year.

"Howl" opens in South Florida on October 22, in Tampa and Jacksonville on the 29, and in Orlando in November.