Clear some things up...

Just watched this about 30 minutes ago, and there are a few things that should be said. This might help a bunch of people who seem to be struggling with the inaccuracies or portrayals in the film. I'm not entirely a Beat scholar, though I have presented papers on the Beats and am getting my doctorate in literature. So hopefully my research helps a bit...

First, the relationships are meant to be fuzzy. They were pretty fuzzy in real life. The first time Kerouac and Ginsberg met was, supposedly, in bed (according to accounts by both of them). They also were purported, on a few rare occasions, to have had sexual encounters. But K and G weren't in love--it was more experimentation. See, the Beats didn't really adhere to rigid sexual definitions. Kerouac was the most conservative, yet there are numerous accounts of his homosexual activities. Part of their mutual philosophy was sexual freedom, which meant relationships were extremely loose. The line between friendship and sexuality was often blurred. So the movie seemed pretty accurate in that sense.

The problem is that people today will try to impose arbitrary definitions that don't need to be there. Or, in other words: if the relationships being a bit ill-defined is bothersome to you, it's probably because you are looking for very clearly defined sexual categories in which to put the characters. You're imposing your ideas of sexuality and your definition of "relationship" on people who didn't have those definitions. I wouldn't doubt that Ginsberg and Carr kissed at least once. I wouldn't doubt that any of the Beats kissed any of the others at any time.

Second, Radcliffe's portrayal of Ginsberg is probably more accurate than people seem to think. Ginsberg has admitted struggling with his own sexuality when he was young, and a large part of Radcliffe's subdued portrayal is because he understands that Ginsberg was raised as a good Jewish boy. Ginsberg fought this impulse and his own feelings of shame and guilt for many years. Meanwhile, those people who seem to love railing against Radcliffe seem to be blinded by their hatred of a famous YA franchise he was involved in. He's actually become a very adept actor. If you didn't know, he's been acclaimed on the Broadway stage since leaving the HP franchise. Here's a couple other things:

--People who are unhappy with his accent: he's not playing an "American." He's playing an 18 year old Jewish person from Northern New Jersey. I thought he did an admirable job with Ginsberg's accent (though maybe not his speech patterns).
--One commenter made it seem that Radcliffe had no emotional range in this film. I guess this is just denial or something. My best advice to that reviewer is to go back and watch the film again, especially the parts when he's screaming, angry, sobbing, or feeling unrequited.
----The reviewer also seems upset that the film didn't concentrate more on the development of the Beat generation or something. Which, just so everyone knows it, is such a stupid thing to say it's unbelievable. This would be like getting angry that Citizen Kane didn't concentrate on World War I more, or being angry that Motorcycle Diaries didn't concentrate on Che Guevara as a Cuban revolutionary. I mean, those movies aren't even about those things. Why would you say they should be? This movie is about Ginsberg when he was 18, not the founding of the Beats. I don't even understand how someone could be so ignorant of basic logic and still figure out how to type or put food in their face.

We will never know what actually happened with Kammerer. I've read many conflicting accounts, but none of them add up to a perfect story. So this movie is what's called a "fictionalization." See, what the writers did was take a piece of history that was incredibly ambiguous and "fictionalize" the circumstances around it. This process is called "writing." Writers will often "write" to fill in these historical gaps and tell an interesting story. Tony Kushner didn't actually know what Abraham Lincoln said all the time, but he "wrote" as though he did. Then, when Steven Spielberg made the film Lincoln, he cast an actor who pretended to be Abraham Lincoln. It was all very, very interesting.

There's one girl who keeps posting things from an interview with Lucien Carr's son as though they are gospel. The truth is that Caleb Carr probably doesn't have too much knowledge about his father's sexual exploits, teenage relationships, or involvement with anyone. How could he possibly? Instead, ask yourself why it matters what the Truth is, in this situation. This film seems to intentionally create space for some doubt about all the character's motivations, in the end. We don't know how much of it is Lucien's fault, we don't know why Ginsberg is so obsessed with him, and we don't know if Kammerer is good or bad. For those of you who are confused: that was the point of the film.