A young college graduate toiling as an intern has dreams of making it big in publishing, and the chance comes when they accept an offer to become the latest assistant of a notoriously over the top...
Patricia Arquette’s directorial debut “Gonzo Girl” is a kaleidoscopic descent into the drug-soaked world of gonzo journalism, nostalgia, and toxic masculinity. Based on Cheryl Della Pietra’s semi-autobiographical novel, the film offers a hallucinatory portrait of a fading literary titan and the young woman tasked with dragging genius out of the wreckage. While Arquette swings big, the results are more disorienting than dazzling.
Set in Aspen in 1992, the film tells the story of Alley Russo (Camila Morrone), a bright-eyed aspiring writer who lands a dream job as assistant to the legendary Walker Reade (Willem Dafoe, in full unhinged glory as a barely-disguised stand-in for Hunter S. Thompson). What follows is a barrage of long-winded, drug-fueled rants, surreal party sequences, and chaotic energy that blurs the line between inspiration and exhaustion.
Much of the film is drenched in psychedelic excess, and not in a fun, “Fear and Loathing” kind of way. The film leans too heavily into its trippy aesthetic and gonzo monologues, which quickly become repetitive and tiresome. Scenes that should be visceral and shocking instead feel indulgent and overlong, as if Arquette mistook chaos for insight.
Fortunately, there are moments of clarity within the madness. The chemistry between the two leads is undeniable, and Dafoe injects genuine pathos into a terrifying yet tragic character who could easily have become a caricature. While he steals the show, Morrone holds her own by capturing the slow erosion of idealism as Alley’s ambition curdles under the weight of Walker’s dysfunction.
Despite strong performances from the cast, the film struggles to land emotionally. The feminist framing of the story of a young woman finding her voice in a world dominated by a self-destructive man feels at odds with the film’s toxic tone and relentless mean-spiritedness. For all its declarations of empowerment, the film often feels more like it’s reveling in male chaos than critiquing it.
The story needed editing, too. Arquette piles on plotlines, visual tricks, and secondary characters without ever fully wrangling them into a cohesive whole. The result is a film that feels as out of control as its subject, which may be the point – but it certainly doesn’t make it any more pleasant to watch.
“Gonzo Girl” isn’t a bad movie. It has ambition, moments of striking visual style, and strong performances (particularly from Dafoe, but he’s usually great in anything and everything he does). Overall, this is an exhausting, uneven film that’s still trying to figure out what it wants to say.
