QUEER (2024 | Italy, USA | 135m | Luca Guadagnino)
I thought that if anyone could make the smack-addled writings of William S Burroughs feel romantic it would have to be Luca Guadagnino, but alas. Although the director — who already made the lower ranks of professional tennis extremely sexy this spring — is among the foremost channelers of the passions that drive men mad, I somehow remain too square and thus immune to the apparent heady allure of psychedelic travelogues.
So, the failure of appreciation of this long-gestating semi-autobiographical Junkie sequel novella might be mine. It’s certainly not for lack of effort from its star, Daniel Craig. As “Lee”, the Burroughs stand-in, he strives mightily and gives a sweaty, disheveled, and very horny performance right from the sweltering opening shot that finds him cruising amid boisterous street life of 1940s Mexico City. With lensing by cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (a frequent collaborator who first worked with Guadagnino on Call Me By Your Name and continues through Challengers) they recreate a magical expat enclave entirely on an Italian soundstage where everyone’s wearing clothing designed by Jonathan Anderson of Loewe. With a feel of hazy memory, hot days, and humid nights, the film finds Lee spending the day trading stories and running up bar tabs with a fellow writer (a delightfully inept, amiable, overstuffed Jason Schwartzman) in their favorite bar, one frequented by mixed company (vs. the gay hideouts elsewhere in the city).
Soon enough, he’s taken with one of them: a tall, slim, Navy serviceman of ambiguous sexuality (Drew Starkey as Eugene Allerton) who frequents the cafe to play chess with a lady friend. Lee follows his crush around the city like a puppy dog, albeit a very horny one trapped in a sixty-something year old man’s body. Whether the infatuation is mutual barely matters, the more time they spend together, the harder Lee pines, the more Eugene indulges. When they finally, deeply drunkenly, consummate the flirtation there’s some degree of acquiescence, but Guadagnino isn’t coy about the specifics of how thoroughly they each enjoy themselves in the bedroom.
As Eugene distances himself with a level of youthful nonchalance or the sexual fluidity of a strikingly handsome sailor, Lee becomes more deeply infatuated. The screenplay from Justin Kuritzkes doesn’t exactly rival the scintillating tensions of this year’s previous collaboration (Challengers), but it does share that film’s fascination with the push and pull of attraction, unknowability, and a certain kind of ambition. Here, the maddening inability to know what’s going on in his pretty boy’s head drives Lee’s obsession with mind reading and experiencing the transformative powers of a fabled jungle plant called yagé (a.k.a. psychedelic ayahuasca tea). Whether he’s curious about the drug, hungry for a change of scenery on someone else’s dime, or actually attracted to Lee, Eugene agrees to join an expedition into the jungles of South American on a quest for the ultimate trip.
It’s a vacation that finds them frolicking romantically on a beach, swimming blissfully with each other in the ocean, negotiating the boundaries of intimacy, and coming to terms with the harsh realities of backpacking with a closet heroin addict. As they plunge deeper into the thick vegetation and further from civilization, the film loses itself in the humid possibilities of better living through plant medicines. They’ll machete their way to encounter with a feral Lesley Manville, an hilarious sloth, and a drug trip with shades of the body malleability that Guadagnino explored in Suspiria. Perhaps because it stretches beyond the frame of the long-unpublished short novel, the story feels both thin, overstretched, and abrupt. Nevertheless, it achieves a mournful quality that’s suffused with the lingering ache of unrequited love under the influence.
Although the film doesn’t feel entirely successful, like almost everything Luca Guadagnino has done this film has more than enough to recommend a look. The soundtrack is another Reznor and Ross marvel that’s peppered with delicious Nirvana needle drops. And as far as slippery muses go, Drew Starkey is one hell of a drug.
An earlier version of this review ran when Queer had its North American Premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. It has a limited theatrical engagement this weekend and expands nationally on December 6th.