Queer

Daniel Craig is clearly making an effort to put down some markers with his post Bond choices. I don't blame him, it's such a suffocating role. The polar opposite, here he's William, a gay American in 1950s Mexico. A very William S. Burroughs premise, who wrote the generally autobiographical book this is based on. It's not Naked Lunch, but it does have an unsettling vibe. Not helped by unusual needle drops from Nirvana, Prince and New Order that just don't fit. William is lonely... and horny. So really, William is frustrated. That is until he meets Eugene (Drew Starkey) and they bond over war stories in the dry heat that drips from the screen. William is infatuated, but doesn't know if the younger Eugene is, or if he's even queer. It doesn't help that William has a self-deprecating, unconfident nature, although vast amounts of cheap booze and cigarettes seem to help. It's an awkward love/lust story, with a lob-sided feeling that William is destined to be hurt. Panama hats, linen suits, glass coke bottles and rusting Cadillacs driving down sunburnt dusty streets, past the daytime drinkers. There's a sordid, lazy, quietly hedonistic tone. Where time is largely irrelevant. The perfect place for William to wallow in a heroin stupor as Eugene leads him on, encourages him, pushes him away. Things don't change much as William tries to whisk Eugene away on a trip to Ecuador, but he does at least have him to himself. William's on a mission though, to source a plant that produces the drug Yage (nope me neither), that's said to give the user a telepathic experience. Here the music does get interesting. Scored by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, although still oddly modern, it depicts perfectly William's obsessive and destructive nature. One that leads him deep into the jungle to find Dr Cotter (Lesley Manville). Who helps both William and Eugene discover things that they already knew. It's all very striking, but I'm not sure that's enough. Craig is pretty fantastic, but Queer did lose me toward the end, even though I'm a big fan of some Lynchian style surrealism. Ultimately I think Burroughs is just better on the page, but this is still an interesting adaptation.

The main reason is that the film was too abstract and seemed like a stream of consciousness. The general meaning is to explore the loneliness in the queer heart, the difficulty in establishing connections with others, the pain of not being able to love, and the complex emotions of depression. But the performance technique is very stream-of-consciousness, especially the last 20 minutes, which have almost no lines and are completely used to express the inner world of the male protagonist through various blurs, hallucinations, and abstract art forms. Although I understood what the director wanted to express, the form of expression may not be acceptable to the public, and I wanted to leave the scene at one point.

I was deeply moved by Call Me by Your Name; suffice to say, it left a lasting impact on me. As a heterosexual myself, I never anticipated that a love story between two individuals of the same sex could resonate so profoundly. It opened a doorway for me and inspired me to delve deeper into other LGBTQ stories.

Regrettably, I cannot extend the same level of admiration to "Queer."

While the performances by Craig and Starkey are commendable, their characters or rather the storytelling at core did not resonate with me. Intricacies of the relationship too failed to evoke the kind of emotional response I was expecting.

However, the final thirty minutes of the film provides an extraordinary experience, offering a sense of catharsis that is quite experimental, even for a filmmaker like Luca Guadagnino, who often deviates from traditional narratives.

It's too long, and it meanders most dully. I have no idea how it would appear to anyone who knows nothing of Burroughs, or what they might enjoy about it. I have to state that I don't like looking at Daniel Craig - some faces are repellent, and the idea that he might be considered attractive is alien to me. I had Dirk Bogarde's performance in Death In Venice in my head throughout, in a way completely unflattering to the ex-Bond. His performance has no nuances. He is incapable of portraying lust, or pleasure, or jealousy; you know he is feeling those because of an action rather than his demeanour. He also fails to be a convincing junkie, as shivering is not enough. Where is the craving that inspires others to murder? Drew Starkey as the object of his affections is similarly flat and unemotional. I wanted a parallel hunger for them both from Craig, instead of which I felt he quite liked them, compared to the tedium of the rest of his life. The best actor in it, by far, is Lesley Manville, who whilst playing the apogee of her usual type, is perfect. The book was unfinished when published, and I found this ending touching and satisfying in a way that the rest of the film lacked.

Daniel Craig did a good job in his role and the scenery/asthetic was pretty cool. Beautifully filmed, but you're always going to get that with a Luca film. It was quite off-putting by how slow and languid it was. Well-acted, well written, but just boring.

Synopsis: 1950. William Lee, an American expat in Mexico City, spends his days almost entirely alone, except for a few contacts with other members of the small American community. His encounter with Eugene Allerton, an expat former soldier, new to the city, shows him, for the first time, that it might be finally possible to establish an intimate connection with somebody.