LAST year’s London Film Festival may have been all about George Clooney, but this year definitely belongs to James Franco.

As well as starring in Danny Boyle’s highly-anticipated thriller 127 Hours, which will close the festival on October 28, Franco delivers a remarkably understated performance as 60s Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in Howl.

News Shopper: James Franco plays Allen Ginsberg in Howl

The film is not only a biopic of the ground breaking bard's youth but also a fascinating glimpse into America on the cusp of sexual revolution and the battle for artistic freedom in the face of strangling conservatism.

Combining monochrome footage of smokey poets' gatherings in San Francisco with a re-enacted interview Ginsberg gave to Time, the film is set against the backdrop of the 1957 trial which saw the young gay poet accused of obscenity for his seminal work Howl - a poem inspired by true events in his life.

The courtroom drama forms the core of the film, while Ginsberg’s crackling verse is breathlessly recited by Franco, with its tumbling, hallucinatory style brought to life through dreamy animation.

It’s a stand-out performance from Franco, who many people will only know as Peter Parker’s slippery friend-turned-villain Harry Osborn in the Spiderman films, and he perfectly embodies Ginsberg’s intelligence, wit and sexual charisma.

News Shopper: James Franco plays Allen Ginsberg in Howl

Howl is a fantastically imagined ode to a poem, which if you’re not familiar with already, will be ringing hauntingly in your ears hours after the credits have rolled. If only because the same lines is irritatingly repeated two or three times in succession in case you didn't quite get it the first time.

But what really makes this film so watchable is the intoxicating presence of Ginsberg himself through his own words and poetry. A free spirit and a brilliant mind.

Howl. London Film Festival. October 26 and October 27. To book, visit bfi.org.uk/lff

Howl is released nationwide on January 7.