“Queer” (2024) Review

Queer feels like the ultimate challenge for director Luca Guadagnino. He tries to adapt the William S. Burroughs novel in a way that explores something left unsaid about the author’s novella that was unpublished for years. Even when the book was published, Burroughs still felt detached from the queer community, and it’s an angle that Guadagnino seems interested in exploring. Doing so requires searching around far outside the director’s comfort zone, taking this historical drama into some darkly surreal and psychological places for those seeking more to life than booze, sex, and drugs through booze, sex, and drugs.

Daniel Craig delivers one of his best performances as Lee, a gay writer who has fled to 1950s Mexico. Aging and bitter, he spends his nights stalking for servicemen to service. Sometimes, he gets lucky and brings one to a motel for a brief night of passion. Other times, he fails to attract the eyes of men and tries to bury the demons of his past in plenty of drinks and heroin. By day, he speaks of the gay scene with the less successful Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman), constantly bitching about how his one-night-stands end up costing him more than a few pesos.

Lee soon grows infatuated with the alluring Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). As a discharged Navy man, Allerton is attractive for far more than being a good-looking guy to go to be with. He’s a smart guy interested in books and is curious enough to follow Lee around Mexico. He’s also passionate enough to immediately return the favor for Lee’s go-to blowjob response, something that he’s not used to. But Lee’s desperation for this attraction bubbles as the lingering ghosts of the past haunt his dreams. His existential crisis takes a more complex turn when he ventures to South America with Eugene in search of a drug that allows users to achieve telepathy (or so Lee believes).

Guadagnino’s direction is incredibly experimental within Queer, bordering on meandering at times with its many trippy nightmares of the past and fits of drunken Mexican nights laced with a modern soundtrack. There’s a lot of breathing room in this film to explore so much more than one man’s lust. Some scenes are as simple as Lee and Eugene sharing their first glance in the streets while in slow motion. Some are as brief as the obsession with jewelry on chests. Some are as complex, where everything swirls into an uncomfortable cocktail of the disembodied and isolated. Perhaps one of the saddest moments is when the two lovers share in a ritual of drugs and sex, where they connect on a greater level. And, yet, it doesn’t seem to be enough. Lee moves on, time passes, and the nightmares remain amid the longing.

Craig’s performance is astounding for how he launches himself into the role of a fragile soul that is still cracking. His moments of ecstasy and joy feel as genuine as his bitterness for ordering drinks and staring across the room at men he wants to fuck, but can’t bring himself to ask. There’s fear present of the past where the film never needs to have some dialogue to divulge his drug-laced past that has coated his psyche with uncertainty. And then there’s Drew Starkey, presented as quietly trying to understand the world and form a connection. He carries himself with confidence but can only watch on as his partner withers with drug addiction and loneliness, staring at a shield he can’t possibly crack, even when being so close.

While his previous film this year, Challengers, was an adrenaline-fueled dose of youthful sex, this is the moody chaser of the older variety. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross once again provide the score, but their music, this time, is a mixture of gentle and psychological. If Challengers made the music another sexual partner joining in on the tension, the music of Queer acts more like a force of nature. Pay close attention to how the music effortlessly shifts during the first sex scene between Lee and Eugene. The soundtrack proceeds from the sweetness of a clarinet to the lingering longing in electronic waves to the harsh and echoey electronic stings when reaching orgasm.

Although maddeningly meandering at times, Queer manages to probe deep into the existential dread of chasing any sensation of being alive. It’s beautiful and intoxicating to get lost in its wild haze and ambiance, boosted by the finest performance of Daniel Craig’s career. This may not be Guadagnino’s best, but it’s undoubtedly one of his more ambitious projects for being willing to get lost in deeper feelings that are never presented as simple.