It's San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. Howl, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society's reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself. All three coalesce in a genre-bending hybrid that brilliantly captures a pivotal moment-the birth of a counterculture.
James Franco
as Allen Ginsberg
Todd Rotondi
as Jack Kerouac
Jon Prescott
as Neal Cassady
Aaron Tveit
as Peter Orlovsky
David Strathairn
as Ralph McIntosh
Jon Hamm
as Jake Ehrlich
Andrew Rogers
as Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Bob Balaban
as Judge Clayton Horn
Mary-Louise Parker
as Gail Potter
Treat Williams
as Mark Schorer
Jeff Daniels
as Professor David Kirk
Alessandro Nivola
as Luther Nichols
