Queer Review

Queer is the second film made by Luca Guadagnino to be released in 2024. This second offering is an adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ novel of the same name.

William Lee (Daniel Craig) is an American expat living in Mexico City in the 1950s. He spends his time meeting younger men for casual sex. William gets drawn to a new arrival to Mexico, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), and sets out to win over the young man.

Guadagnino is a filmmaker who’s no stranger to LGBTQ themes. One of his most successful films was Call Me by Your Name and Challengers which was surprisingly more homoerotic than expected. Even Bones and All had a sequence involving homosexuality. So, Queer fitted Guadagnino’s filmography. Queer was even more explicit with lots of male nudity and sex on screen.

Guadagnino’s previous two films did have some mainstream appeal, especially Challengers which was a sports film starring Zendaya. The Italian goes in an art house direction for this film. The story was fairly straightforward since it was about the ups and downs of a relationship. It was split into three with William trying to win over Eugene, the couple travelling across South America, and going on an expedition in the jungle. The art-house approach came from the film’s visual story and moments of surrealism.

Queer had an artificial look. It was a bright, saturated film that looked like a neo-noir film because of neon lighting, the dank bars and apartments, and big 1950s cars. Yet it wasn’t a mystery. There were also surreal hallucinations, usually drug-induced. There was a subplot where William was looking for a plant that could unlock telepathic abilities which added to the surrealism and moments bringing about what the fuck reactions. The film started off looking fairly grounded, but the surreal and artificial images increased during the runtime.

Queer had a shotgun style of storytelling. It goes all over the place. The pair go to many places. It also had multiple storylines. The core was the love story that flips between William’s desire, William seemingly trying to wear down Eugene, and William worrying about his partner becoming distant. These relationship issues led to William relapsing back to heroin which made Queer into a drugs story.

Queer did have some similarities to All of Us Strangers, another LGBT drama that had a magical realistic element. All of Us Strangers was a film about a man who started communicating with the ghosts of his parents just as he started a relationship with a younger man. Although there were numerous differences since All of Us Strangers was a gritty British film and Queer was a more lavish production and All of Us Strangers was more heartfelt and tender than the Latin American-set film.

Queer’s best attribute was the acting. Craig got to show off his acting talent outside of his major franchise roles that he had been tied to for a long time. Craig’s William was charming and observant but had a dark side. A small moment I liked was when William snapped at another man, showing this dark side. One of the best scenes in the film was a quiet one when William takes heroin for the first time. It was a sombre, tragic moment. Craig gave his best attempt at an American accent as William.

Starkey was also a strong performer as a younger man who remained cool and calm. The most memorable supporting actings were Lesley Manville and Jason Schwartzman. Manville played a different type of character since she was an American botanist who moved to the Amazon and turned into a survivalist hippy. She was a larger-than-life character. Schwartzman was another expat in Mexico who kept getting robbed by his one-night stands. His misfortune offered some comic relief.

Queer was a lesser effort by Guadagnino. It was a well-acted film but suffered from a style-over-substance approach and was more interested in arty tangents.