When Queer made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Kyle Buchanan of The New York Times shared on Twitter/X that one attendee booed and groaned during the film’s sex scenes. It was a strange reaction. After all, what does one expect from a movie titled Queer, directed by Luca Guadagnino, someone intensely focused on how humans reckon with desire, from cannibals to tennis stars?
The dubious pearl-clutching by that moviegoer (and others lacking the maturity to handle sex scenes properly) obscures how the film is more than Daniel Craig as a linen suit-wearing expat having his way with young men.
Adapted from Williams S. Burroughs’s novel of the same name, Queer is the story of William Lee (Craig), an American hiding out in 1940s Mexico City after a drug bust. Lee spends his days traipsing through the local restaurants and clubs with his acquaintance Joe (Jason Schwartzman), debating whether or not a nearby person is queer or not. When he isn’t trying to determine one’s sexuality, he is engaging in casual, meaningless hookups with attractive young men. William’s routine is upended when he notices Eugene (Drew Starkey), an enigmatic young man who pals around with an older woman but also has eyes for him. The two embark on a passionate affair, culminating in a trip to South America, where William seeks a hallucinogenic plant with “telepathic properties.”
One might wonder why William is pursuing this plant, more commonly known as ayahuasca, in the first place. It can’t possibly be because he thinks it will make him the next Charles Xavier. (William may be a drug-addicted wanton, but he’s not delusional.) Guadagnino doesn’t provide an immediate answer, instead closely following behind William’s aimless wandering and increasingly needy sexcapades with Eugene, who waffles between interest and disinterest. At first glance, Guadagnino’s approach seems like pointless meandering without a clear end goal. His images are as evocative and sensual as they usually are, easily conveying the naked (figuratively and literally) desire that drives William and the film overall. But to what end? Are William and Eugene the apex or nadir of queer romance, two lost souls destined to either enrich or destroy each other? Or is Eugene merely another passing fling, a distraction from the drug-addled life he’s become accustomed to that is eating him from the inside?
The lack of clarity can make Queer a confounding, even alienating watch at times, especially as Guadagnino ventures into the surreality of its second half. However, he leaves hints throughout the film about what he hopes to convey. William and Joe’s guessing game about other men’s sexuality is more than a way to pass the time or William seeking sexual satisfaction. William is seeking the truth in a world where homosexuality carries the threat of emotional and physical danger. As he gets more embroiled in his relationship with Eugene, William finds himself frustratingly unclear about where they stand and how he truly feels about him. Their crusade to South America for that hallucinogenic plant and its “telepathic properties” is William’s desperate attempt to break down the final wall between him and his lover, to honestly know someone inside and out, health risks and legalities be damned.
Guadagnino visualizes that purpose in one of the year’s strangest and most profound scenes. After consuming the ayahuasca, William and Eugene appear to have sex again, but their assignation finds them literally melting into each other. They push through Eugene’s passive indifference and William’s boundless yearning to connect in a way that will reverberate long after they leave the jungle and each other behind. It’s an ethereal moment where everything Guadagnino says about the crippling loneliness that can accompany queerness, then and now, snaps into astonishing focus. It makes you look back through the film’s perceived aimlessness and see it as a deliberate, symbolic choice. By driving deeper into magical realism through his direction and Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s gorgeous cinematography, Guadagnino is demonstrating how difficult it is for queer people of William’s time (and perhaps even now) to obtain deep, life-changing love. It is a quietly gutting statement.
Of course, Guadagnino couldn’t have made that statement alone. He taps Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey to bring his story of yearning for human connection to life, and they do so wonderfully. Known for larger-than-life characters, Craig is deeply, heartbreakingly grounded as William. He lays out William’s desperation in all its forms, from his pathetic peacocking for Eugene to the wounded admittance of his drug habit, with sharp, achingly honest vulnerability. You never once doubt that Craig is holding something back, which endears us to William even as the film itself veers into the opaque. Speaking of opaque, Starkey reflects the enigma of Eugene well. He emanates an enchanting mix of mystery, indifference, and disaffected charm through his mildly intrigued eyes and relaxed posture. Guadagnino’s camera adores him, emphasizing those qualities to ensure the audience understands why William is obsessed with him.
Queer is a challenging film, perhaps one of the most challenging this year. It’s an unabashedly fluid exercise, dabbling with metaphysics and psychedelia before going all-in on the fever-dream atmosphere of its latter half. And yes, there are quite a few gay sex scenes where Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey (and also Omar Apollo) go at it with wild abandon. If you can get beyond both (seriously, it’s 2024; grow up), Guadagnino’s odyssey is worth the extra effort. It reinforces the filmmaker as one of the foremost cinematic voices on desire, willing to stretch himself and his colleagues to further interrogate our relationship with it. Like William and human connection, we collectively, desperately need that voice.
Queer held its North American Premiere as part of the Special Presentations section at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The film will be released by A24 on a date yet to be determined.
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Writer: Justin Kuritzkes
Rated: NR
Runtime: 135m
Queer is a challenging film, perhaps one of the most challenging this year. It’s an unabashedly fluid exercise, dabbling with metaphysics and psychedelia before going all-in on the fever-dream atmosphere of its latter half.
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GVN Rating
A late-stage millennial lover of most things related to pop culture. Becomes irrationally irritated by Oscar predictions that don’t come true.
