After their critically acclaimed and audience-favorite romance Challengers earlier this year, writer Justin Kuritzkes and director Luca Guadagnino have re-teamed for Queer, and it couldn’t be more different. Surreal, funny, and most of all sexy, Queer challenges the audience in ways that will almost certainly ensure it is divisive, but are incredibly ambitious swings nonetheless.
Queer Review
Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch), Queer follows Lee, an American expatriate living in Mexico City, as he searches for connection and a drug that will unlock the power of telepathy. This is certainly Guadagnino’s most out-there film yet, sharing more resemblance with something like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas than the Italian auteur’s filmography.
Those familiar with Burroughs’s work will know his dense, surreal writing style. The most notable filmmaker to adapt his work thus far has been David Cronenberg, whose trippy body horror style seems like a much better fit than Guadagnino’s poeticism. However, Guadagnino balances his own approach with Burroughs’s tone incredibly well, leaning surprisingly hard into the weirder aspects of the author’s storytelling.
Yet, even though it is outside Guadagnino’s typical foray, he executes these scenes with a thoroughly distinctive vision. Particularly in the third act, which contains most of the movie’s drug trip sequences, Queer is one of the most stylistically idiosyncratic films of the year. The production design and effects are wholly immersive, and the soundtrack choices — with heavy use of anachronistic popular music — go a long way in drawing viewers into the almost trance-like state of the protagonist.
Where some audiences will be put off is trying to find meaning in this bizarre odyssey. In typical Burroughs fashion, there are no easy answers. This is not your typical movie about being queer or an addict in the 1950s. It’s not about facing homophobia or withdrawal. Instead, it’s about a different type of addiction — an addiction to connection and love, or at least what we perceive to be love in our desperate mindsets.
Others may find themselves disillusioned by the near-aimlessness of the pacing. The laid-back structure of the narrative makes sense to the story, as we are watching the protagonist wander and drift through the world in search of something that is not within his sights, but something so episodic and occasionally repetitive is certainly not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. That being said, the film’s consistent funniness allows it to keep viewers engaged throughout the entirety of the runtime.
Part of what makes this structure so effective for Queer is that it gives the protagonist a fascinating set of characters to encounter along his journey. Jason Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are among the recognizable actors who play people drifting through Lee’s orbit, and both are playing hilariously against type. Yet, they aren’t simply archetypes to push the story along or even provide comedic relief. They feel like richly developed personalities in their own right — lived in despite being larger-than-life.
The biggest surprise in the cast is Drew Starkey, whose turn as the protagonist’s muse and love interest is perfectly alluring. Starkey brings a mysteriousness to the role. His controlled energy is a perfect foil to the mania we see from the protagonist, elevating the character above the archetype he fulfills.
However, Queer is — first and foremost — a showcase for its leading man, and Daniel Craig steps up to the task mightily. He brings the same humor and charm he brought to movies like Knives Out and Logan Lucky but also shows an unexpected vulnerability that we really haven’t seen from him. Many straight A-list actors tend to be incredibly timid when they are playing LGBTQIA+ characters in general, much less one as complicated as this, but Craig inhabits this role so completely that it’s hard to imagine anyone else as Lee.
Is Queer worth watching?
Although Luca Guadagnino and William S. Burroughs might not seem like an ideal combination on paper, Queer allows Guadagnino to embrace his weirdness while delivering an entertaining, provocative, and visually stupendous odyssey. It’s an incredibly idiosyncratic, almost esoteric film, but it’s easy to admire a movie that is so unabashedly its own thing.
Queer is playing at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, which runs September 5-14.
Queer Review — Daniel Craig Shines in Luca Guadagnino’s Deliciously Weird Burroughs Adaptation
Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs’s Queer is an incredibly weird and idiosyncratic comedy. However, it is exactly what fans of the author will expect.
