Howl Showtimes and Tickets

Young Allen Ginsberg -- poet, counter-culture adventurer and chronicler of the Beat Generation -- recounts in his famously confessional, leave-nothing-out style the road trips, love affairs and search for personal liberation that led to the most timeless and electrifying work of his career, the poem "Howl." Meanwhile, in a San Francisco courtroom, "Howl" is on trial. Prosecutor Ralph McIntosh sets out to prove that the book should be banned, while suave defense attorney Jake Ehrlich argues fervently for freedom of speech and creative expression. The proceedings veer from the comically absurd to the fervently passionate as a host of unusual pit generation against generation and art against fear in front of conservative Judge Clayton Horn. The trial's heated controversy and Ginsberg's provocative memories are woven around "Howl" itself, its images of ecstasy and anguish, of desire, madness and wonder, brought to vivid, visceral life in a fever dream of inventive animation. Echoing the vastness and originality of Ginsberg's poem, "Howl" mashes up genres and rides wild emotions as it reveals all the ways a fearless work of art impacted its creator and the world.