Queer | 2024
Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey in QUEER. Photo by Yannis Drakoulidis. Courtesy of A24.
Based on the novella by William S. Burroughs, Luca Guadagnino's Queer exists in a hazy milieu of dingy gay bars and shady back alleys, hearkening back to a time when being gay wasn't just socially unacceptable but an actual crime.
Daniel Craig's William Lee wanders in and out of bars, throwing back shots and cruising for hookups, in between which he shoots up heroin and gossips with the other old queens who populate the neighborhood. His life changes, however, with the arrival of a new face on the scene. Eugene (Drew Starkey) is young, mysterious, and sexually ambiguous - the perfect challenge for the increasingly bored William, whose constant pursuit of the next high leads him to go to great lengths to get what he wants. In chasing Eugene, he also begins to chase new physical highs as well, seeking a new form of opiate that will transform his mind and take the pair to a new plane of human connection.
Luca Guadagnino is incredibly adept at this kind of queer longing, as evidenced by Call Me By Your Name and this year's admittedly less heavy Challengers, so it's especially exciting to see him turn his eye toward this particular era of queer history. Set in the 1950s, Queer is incredibly evocative of its time and place, every moment seemingly rife with the intoxicating and contradictory mix of danger and excitement that comes with the forbidden heat of a clandestine rendezvous. You can almost smell the essence of sweat, booze, and cum radiating off this thing. It feels dangerous and transgressive in a way few films about queerness do - partly because of the time it takes place, but also because of Guadagnino's uncompromising vision and clear love of that aesthetic.
Interestingly, the film this most reminds me of is Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Tropical Malady (2005). and not simply because frequent Weerasethakul cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom shot it. It, too, featured a queer man heading out into the jungle to confront himself and his nature, just as William does here. Once he finds this fabled opiate, he and his new fling attain a kind of profound coupling that changes them both. This is where the film begins to lose steam, Guadignino seemingly less interested in the story's metaphysical elements than its sexual ones. Taken out of its specific environment, Queer stagnates somewhat. It's never anything less than gorgeously shot,but its drug quest and that connection with queer culture feels far less interesting than its urban 1950s queer ennui. William is a man almost at war with his own sexuality, fully at peace with his status as a gay man but nevertheless uncomfortable in a world that doesn't accept him. His love of sex, drugs, and booze is a coping mechanism, a way to escape himself, a manifestation of deep-seated self-loathing. In the jungle sequences, this all comes to fruition in frustratingly literal ways, seemingly undercutting the captivating brew of its first act.
Nevertheless, Queer’s languid reveling in queer malaise is a heady, exhilarating concoction. I get that its drug-fueled navel-gazing is part of the Burroughs mystique, but the jungle sequences ultimately keep the film from being great (despite a fun turn by Lesley Manville). Of Guagagnino's 2024 output, Challengers remains solidly on top.
