Queer

Released 2024. Director: Luca Guadagnino

IF DANIEL CRAIG WANTED TO completely break away from his James Bond persona and take his acting career in a new direction, he couldn’t have done better with Queer. Craig’s mould-busting turn as a wistful homosexual man in Queer is a transformation that unshackles the actor from the ironclad identity of the Bond series and goes beyond the comedic shifts of Benoit Blanc in the Knives Out movies. The man here that Craig conjures from the pages of a novella by William S. Burroughs is proof the actor has much more in his repertoire to surprise us.

Craig’s character is named William Lee, a man displaced in several ways – he's in exile, in pursuit of other-worldly escapism, not to mention in touch with his demons. Lee is a forty-something writer living in Mexico in 1950. He drifts among the American expatriate community, hanging out in bars seeking meaningful connections. Lee is a lonely and hopeless romantic infatuated with a younger man named Eugene. So besotted is Lee with the standoffish object of his desires and affections that Lee’s fumbling and awkward moves on an initially bemused Eugene is embarrassing for anyone watching.

Lee’s environment – the streets, the bar, his home – has a touch of saturated realism in Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s photography. The design, lighting and palette suggest a slight sense of detachment that reflects the effects of hallucinogenic substance that Lee is addicted to. Some of Lee’s reality that we see, especially towards the end, is embellished by Lee’s fantasy, brought on by the emptiness at the end of his life.

Eugene, as portrayed by Drew Starkey, is a mystery that is ultimately and sadly for Lee, elusive. He is also sexually ambiguous and his motivations are not always clear. Perhaps this ambiguity is also some kind of reflection that Lee doesn’t understand or able to see the ideal he’s chasing. That said, in my view Eugene is a bland character and it’s difficult to see why Lee is so hung up on him, especially when Eugene doesn’t share similar feelings in return. Obsession, I guess, is part of the enigma of attraction.

Lee is also crazy about finding the yage plant that produces his hallucinogenic drug which he believes induces telepathy. Eugene is persuaded to join him to venture deep into the jungle for the search though his heart is not in it. Lee finds his botanical treasure but loses the man of his dreams.

Queer is a tragic semi-romance that befits the times and climes of its setting. The allegorical undertones, darkness and mysteries (of the heart and of the deep jungle populated by beasts and a wild biologist played by Leslie Manville) also bring to mind "Naked Lunch", another novel by Burroughs, in which Lee continues his bizarre and mind-altering experiences.

What brings Lee joy and contentment is not anything he can grasp or keep, but ideals and abstractions. He thinks if he could only read Eugene’s mind then he’d know how to love him and keep him. Lee is somewhat naïve that way, aware of the limitations of his affections but hoping that he’s wrong.

This is the second collaboration between director Luca Guadagnino and writer Justin Kuritzkes following Challengers, an energetic exploration of youthful romance marked by jealousy and possessiveness. Queer operates on a completely different vibe, with Guadagnino and Kuritzkes changing the mood completely gazing at midlife pining and futile grasping at unreturned affections.

Beneath the sensuality and dated stereotypes, there is a haunting thought, an emotional place where most of us have perhaps at one time found ourselves: if only that one person felt the same way about me, as I do him/her. Nothing cuts quite the same way as a love that is never returned.

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