THE STORY – A struggling young writer takes a job working as an assistant to a novelist with a wild reputation.
THE CAST – Camila Morrone, Willem Dafoe, Patricia Arquette, Elizabeth Lail & Ray Nicholson
THE TEAM – Patricia Arquette (Director), Rebecca Thomas & Jessica Caldwell (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 96 Minutes
Like a vintage typewriter jammed halfway through a psychedelic spiral, “Gonzo Girl” stutters between chaos and coherence; Patricia Arquette’s directorial debut is a place where the air is thick with nostalgia, cocaine, and the fading aura of a mythic man named Walker Reade (Willem Dafoe), a thinly veiled stand-in for Hunter S. Thompson. Through the wide, wary eyes of Alley Russo (Camila Morrone), an aspiring writer drawn into Reade’s orbit as his new assistant, we witness the slow collapse of an icon who once roared with the counterculture but is now a forgotten legend. This isn’t just a story about art and addiction — it’s a dissection of authorship itself.
Set against a psychedelic backdrop that insists on looking like the 1970s despite being 1992, “Gonzo Girl” is based on the novel by Cheryl Della Pietra, who worked briefly — and survived barely — as Hunter S. Thompson’s assistant. The film is steeped in the tenets of gonzo journalism: immersion, subjectivity, and raw, unfiltered narrative. Dafoe’s Reade, embodied with chaotic magnetism, is a force of decaying youth, a man who once used his typewriter like a weapon but now treats it like an ashtray. Alley is tasked with dragging prose out of this incoherent, fading author, only to discover that it’s easier (and perhaps necessary) to write it herself.
Morrone gives a subtle but ultimately commanding performance as Alley, a woman chasing meaning in the middle of madness. Her transformation from passive observer to inspired ghostwriter is the film’s emotional core, though it’s a shame the film’s script doesn’t give her character equal narrative weight to Dafoe’s. Alley is more of a secondary background character to Walker’s narrative. While Dafoe’s performance is predictably excellent, alternating between volcanic outbursts and vulnerable despair, it overshadows the quieter, more introspective journey that Morrone’s character takes. Alley begins as a bartender with a dream and becomes a co-author of someone else’s legacy.
Though “Gonzo Girl” succeeds in capturing the sensation of being swallowed whole by another person’s myth, it suffers from overindulgence. There are only so many slow-motion drug binges and frenzied typewriter montages one can sit through before the film begins to feel repetitive, like being caught in a loop of someone else’s acid trip. The setting — Walker’s remote Colorado compound — functions less like a place and more like a vibe, and while that may be intentional, it leaves the film feeling untethered and emotionally weightless. The 1970s aesthetic makes thematic sense, given Reade’s longing for a bygone era, but it also adds a layer of confusion, blurring time and place in ways that distract more than they deepen.
And yet, at its best, “Gonzo Girl” taps into a compelling dichotomy: an author running out of words and an assistant who hasn’t yet found hers. The tension between Alley’s rising voice and Walker’s fading one could have been a rich theme to explore more deeply, but the film too often opts for spectacle over substance. We get more blow-fueled parties than emotional stakes.
Ultimately, “Gonzo Girl” is a hazy high that never quite comes down — stylish, immersive, but emotionally distant. It gestures at big questions about legacy, authorship, and the cost of being close to genius but never lands on a satisfying answer. Arquette’s debut shows promise, but Dafoe and Morrone both give performances that deserve a stronger story. Like its subject, the film gets lost chasing ghosts of the past. In trying to revive the spirit of gonzo journalism — a style that rebelled against structure and objectivity — it ironically becomes a film that is too structured by its own indulgences and unfocused to land a punch. Just as Alley discovers, writing someone else’s story may be exhilarating, but it’s never quite the same as finding your own voice.
