There were high hopes for Queer, Luca Guadagnino’s much-discussed William S. Burroughs adaptation, which is competing for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Sadly, the sun-soaked, dust-coated drama—a meandering and often mournful tour of 1950s Mexico City, and then South America, through a haze of tequila, heroin and, later, ayahuasca—eventually becomes a slog, though it has two redeeming factors: Daniel Craig, who stars as the film’s loquacious, scenery-chewing anti-hero, and Outer Banks’s Drew Starkey as the quiet, inscrutable object of his affection.
The opening credits set the scene well enough—a series of tableaux show us a faded mattress in a Mexico City apartment, and on it a collection of objects: books, ashtrays, typewriters, and pistols, with centipedes wriggling between them. The sequence, like the film we’re about to see, is stylish—but it also epitomizes Queer’s tendency to prioritize arresting images over actual substance, something which, by the end, becomes grating.
The mattress belongs to William Lee, a hard-drinking American expat who spends his days and nights cruising the city’s bars in search of the next hot, young arrival. As embodied by Craig in pale suits and matching trilbies, he’s somewhere between an insatiable, off-duty Bond and a foppish Benoit Blanc from the Knives Out franchise—though far less romantically successful than both, given most of the city’s boys seem to have learned to avoid him. But then, as he wanders the streets and witnesses a cockfight, he locks eyes with a dashing newcomer who smiles at him: Starkey’s Eugene Allerton. It’s like a bolt of lightning—and he’s hooked.
Both Craig and Starkey play this initial covert flirtation well, though they’re not helped by the fact that the interaction plays out in slow motion to the tune of Nirvana’s “Come As You Are.” There’s a whiff of old-fashioned perfume ad about the whole thing that proves difficult to shake off, though the pair do what they can. Uncharacteristically, Lee tries to get to know Allerton before making his first move, and the latter proves impossible to read—he hangs out with a woman who could be his girlfriend; he welcomes Lee’s attention but never fully commits. There’s a delicious restraint and slipperiness to Starkey in these early moments, and he proves more than a match for Craig’s eager and uncertain Lee.
Then comes the moment of truth: they go back to Lee’s place and, after a few hiccups, one thing does eventually lead to another. The sex scene which follows is remarkably tender and, for a moment, you wonder if Lee has finally found the happy ending he’s been so breathlessly searching for. But of course, it’s not that simple: Allerton quickly grows bored of him and Lee becomes increasingly anxious about holding onto his new lover. Consumed with self-loathing, Lee begins dabbling in heroin and cocaine, and becomes obsessed with the idea of taking ayahuasca. With much effort, he manages to persuade Allerton to take a trip with him through South America, promising that he can be free and sleep with whomever he wants along the way. After they set off, Lee experiences a grueling comedown—but also finds an intriguing lead, which takes him deep into the Amazon in search of the drug which, he hopes, will change his life.
It’s in this third act, when Lee and Allerton head into the forest, that the film goes completely and spectacularly off the rails: they visit a doctor living in the wilderness (a demented and almost unrecognizable Lesley Manville), and what was a melancholy tale of addiction and unrequited love temporarily becomes a kind of mad jungle comedy. She and her partner host a “healing ceremony” which sends both Lee and Allerton over the edge, prompting mind-melting visions that bleed into the film’s somewhat excruciating final moments, too.
These numerous dreamlike interludes, including several which predate the ayahuasca, are some of the film’s weakest moments—visually dazzling, certainly, but also tiresome and indulgent, testing the audience’s patience. There’s also a recurring image of Lee slowly disappearing in certain scenes—his body becoming increasingly translucent—which falls flat, especially when, as Lee and Allerton are first getting to know each other, we see Lee’s phantom limbs caressing the boy he’s fallen for, as the real him never could. The effect is odd at best, and painfully cringeworthy at worst. It doesn’t help, either, that there’s a rather heavy-handed use of CGI throughout. (The shots of South America lack any distinct sense of place—perhaps unsurprising, considering much of the project was filmed at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios.)
A word, too, for those who have heard about the reportedly explosive sex scenes in Queer: yes, there’s an early tryst between Lee and a handsome young man, played by pop star Omar Apollo (in his big-screen debut, no less), in which the latter is full frontal, but beyond that, the film feels strangely tame. The nudity is fleeting, and often, as bodies thrust against one another, the camera discreetly cuts away to admire the room or the view from the window. It’s a confounding choice.
Despite it all, though, Craig and Starkey are excellent. The latter disappears suddenly towards the end of the film, but makes his presence felt in every single scene he’s in—his Allerton is thoughtful and affectionate but also wary of Lee’s obsessive nature and opportunistic in his exploitation of it. Craig, meanwhile, fills his Lee with an overwhelming and utterly desperate neediness that is touchingly tragic. He’s a consummate entertainer, always cracking jokes and sharing pithy anecdotes, but forever watchful of those around him and fearful of being discarded. As they lie in bed together—passionate but cautious, forever trying to figure out what they mean to one another—their relationship is entirely believable.
Given the boos that rang out through the closing credits at the press screening I attended, it seems safe to say that Queer is unlikely to have much of a presence on the awards circuit, and won’t cause the kind of ruckus that Guadagnino’s last film, the sexy, starry Challengers, did, but it’s perhaps unwise to write Craig off just yet: after years in the franchise movie business, the actor has made the industry a lot of money and accrued a great deal of good will. This post-Bond foray into arthouse cinema is an exciting move, and his performance a supremely compelling one. Any plaudits and prizes he receives will be thoroughly deserved.
