GONZO GIRL at Tribeca Festival 2025

by William J. Hammon, ActuallyPaid.com

The directorial debut for Oscar-winning actor Patricia Arquette, Gonzo Girl premiered at the Toronto Film Festival back in 2023, and a year-and-a-half later, it will see a U.S. screen for the first time at Tribeca. Based on a 2015 novel by Cheryl Della Pietra, it features a star-studded cast depicting an episode in the crazed life of gonzo journalist, Hunter S. Thompson.

Willem Dafoe carries the affair as Thompson, renamed “Walker Reade” for the purposes of fiction, under pressure from his agent (James Urbaniak) to finish his latest book on a tight deadline. Enter Alley Russo (Camila Morrone), a recent graduate and aspiring writer herself, hired as his assistant to push him because she challenged his antics at a public appearance. Fully immersing herself in Reade’s vices and drugged out lifestyle, she embraces the insanity but also notices that the beloved author is losing his touch, so she opts to essentially write the book for him, translating his non sequiturs into his trademark style. Her attempts to sustain this without a) getting caught, and b) succumbing to the swirl of addiction surrounding her provide an interesting through line.

Originally published at http://behindtherabbitproductions.wordpress.com on June 14, 2025.