Director: Luca Guadagnino
WritersWilliam S. Burroughs, Justin Kuritzkes
Stars: Daniel Craig, Lesley Manville, Drew Starkey
Synopsis: Lee, who recounts his life in Mexico City among American expatriate college students and bar owners surviving on part-time jobs and GI Bill benefits. He is driven to pursue a young man named Allerton, who is based on Adelbert Lewis Marker.
Earlier this year, Luca Guadagnino gave audiences what will likely be the most popular film of 2024, Challengers. Since then, he’s had many eyes on his next move. So it was quite exciting to hear that he was striking while the iron was still glowing hot. But Guadagnino is not a filmmaker to simply retread familiar ground. There are, of course, thematic links between many of his films. His latest, Queer, which is celebrating its U.S Premiere as the Spotlight Gala film of the 62nd New York Film Festival, is no exception. But Guadagnino is a filmmaker who has been known to take bold departures in style for the sake of keeping audiences on their toes. After all, this is the man who followed up the gorgeous Call Me By Your Name with Suspiria, one of the most disturbing films of the decade. It also happens to be one of the best of that decade; certainly one of the best films of 2018. The point is, Guadagnino is a filmmaker who doesn’t seem to enjoy taking the easy road. And it often pays off. So it’s with great pleasure that I tell you Queer, based on William S. Burroughs’ novel of the same name, is wildly inaccessible when compared to Challengers. This is meant as wholly complimentary. For as it currently stands, Queer is one of the best films of 2024.
Reuniting with Challengers writer Justin Kuritzkes, the glamor of a tennis-obsessed love triangle may be gone, but the inherent messiness of desire and obsession is still very much present in Queer. It can all be seen in the introduction of William Lee (Daniel Craig, who turns in an astounding, all-in performance). Lee roams the streets of Mexico City in the 1950s. In many ways, Guadagnino practically frames the opening of this introductory chapter as a ghost story. It’s something that the film will repeatedly return to through its striking, surreal visuals; but more on that to come. For now, all the audience can gather is Lee’s fundamental loneliness. He‘s searching for something. Companionship feels the most likely. But if he cannot establish a legitimate connection with one of the many individuals he thrusts himself upon, then a nighttime embrace will have to do. Craig’s eyes reveal the emptiness within him these actions bring forth, but it appears giving into the vice of his heart and carnal pleasures is better than the heroin he’s addicted to. Leave it to Guadagnino to take the deep romance he excels at capturing, and warping it into a painfully raw experience. But he also doesn’t make his lead character as cut-and-dry as it would appear.
Yes, Lee resembles something of a drifter stuck in place. He’s an expatriate, having not been on his home soil for quite some time. But the way he confidently struts around via expertly soundtracked montages, you couldn’t tell that he might be homesick, lovesick, or more likely, a devastating combination of both. As Guadagnino reveals more about Lee, we begin to see that it’s all somewhat for show. It’s upon meeting Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) that Guadagnino goes about addressing the facade Lee puts on with striking fashion. It could be argued that much of Guadagnino’s filmmaking never calls attention to itself. In many of his films, he lets the image or the performances speak for themselves. But in Queer, which I’d argue is his most densely layered film, he piles on metaphors and cinematic trickery to leave his audience scrambling for meaning. But these sequences are deeply exciting, perhaps none more so than Guadagnino’s initial usage of scrambled A/V imagery to elicit a sense of feeling disconnected. These surreal images that manifest ideas of an apparition are also incredibly tactile to convey meaning to the audience. It’s worthy of gasps, not just because of the emotions at play. It remains a testament to Guadagnino constantly upending audience expectations at every possible turn.
All we’ve seen of Lee begins to strip away as he and Eugene spend more time with one another. But this isn’t strictly a romance captured by Guadagnino. It’s far more compelling. Starkey turns in such an internalized performance. He can switch from hot to cold on Lee at a moments notice. Much of Queer grapples with self-identity, and how we’re perceived by the people around us. It’s clear that this is a defining factor in the decisions Lee makes. When Lee isn’t being tormented by his obsession with Eugene’s approval and affection, the two radiate genuine attraction and chemistry. And of course, it looks gorgeous. Queer captures the beauty of basking in golden rays of sunshine while sitting undisturbed, reading side-by-side. Yet there’s a palpable distraction emanating from the body of the person beside you. It’s so romantic, and yet, Guadagnino occasionally steps in to remind us of the darker side of feeling like we must put all of ourselves into the body of another.
The second half of this film descends into territory that’s completely surreal at times. But Guadagnino begins planting the seeds very early on. There’s one sequence in particular; a nightmare Lee is having, which cracks open the infatuation we’ve seen into something far more depressing and upsetting. As written earlier, Lee is a haunted man. He’s been hurt, and while he may not be entirely innocent, he carries his pain with him in the form of frightening, visceral visions of past experiences blending together in a cramped, dark alleyway. It’s clear that, despite abandoning his home country, he has been unable to run away from what drove him out in the first place. As such, Lee is a man lost not only in place, but within himself. During an extended sequence (beautifully soundtracked to Prince) which draws out the arduous process of his shooting up heroin, Lee appears with head just out of frame. It’s only when the drugs have entered his blood that the camera pans up, revealing not a man on a mission, but a sad, lonely, contemplative individual whose only true company has been cigarette smoke, alcohol, and the drugs laid out on a table in front of him. It’s rather devastating, and Craig’s face is one any viewer could find themselves lost in. It’s over the next two chapters and a stunning epilogue that Lee and Guadagnino’s statement on obsession and yearning begins to form a complete and tragic picture, but it all begins to culminate in this moment.
In a sequence fueled by ayahuasca that inextricably links this film to Suspiria more than anything else in his filmography, Guadagnino seems to posit the idea that no matter how much we want to give our all to another individual, it’s impossible. We can feel an unquantifiably powerful connection, but that may be as far as something can go. And much like the arc of the second chapter of this film, we need to recognize such a fact before it’s too late. We can miss what we’ve been searching for all along if we’re too obsessed with something unattainable. And again, Lee is left with a clear sense of longing as the soul-crushing theme from composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross rings out. Guadagnino obviously knows how to make a film as romantic as can be. But at its most brilliant, Queer posits the notion that that can sometimes inevitably lead to a life of devastating loneliness. A life of being lost among familiarity, never feeling completely comfortable. Is this familiarity enough to bring solace? Or does it merely exist to remind us of the deeper pains we once felt? We may try to force the obsession out of our minds, but doing so could also tragically cast us away to a life of feeling hollow. If all we seek is comfort amidst the chaos, perhaps being trapped in a prison of our own emotional making is better than living a life of meaningless relations and heavy drug usage? Queer doesn’t go so far as providing those answers, but rather, leaves us with an appropriate sense of devastation. Guadagnino never takes the easy route when making his films, and the characters he becomes attached to rarely have simple decisions to make either. But that’s what makes this film, and all his other films, some of the most compelling of their time. May he continue to never provide the answers to life we seek, and may he always find new ways to ravage our emotional states with each new release.
Queer celebrated its U.S Premiere as the Spotlight Gala film of the 62nd New York Film Festival.
