Guadagnino’s soul-searching adaptation is a mixed bag of moods
If you’re familiar with the literary works of William S. Burroughs, then perhaps you won’t be surprised that film adaptations of his novels contain a strong sense of surreality, auto-biographicality, and intense intimacy. The latter characteristic is also prevalently featured in the works of director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name; Challengers). Despite Guadagnino and Burroughs’ shared love for portraying romantic physicality, and Daniel Craig’s impressively daring and vulnerable performance, Guadagnino’s adaptation of the Burroughs short novel, Queer, tries and often fails to properly balance the two artists’ stylistic approaches.
Queer takes place in Mexico City in 1950. William Lee (Craig), an opioid addicted homosexual American expat, meanders the local bar scenes day and night searching for intimate connections with younger men. When he meets a former American soldier, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), Lee believes he may have found the strong connection he never envisioned for himself. Lee and Allerton are at different stages in life, both in age and romantic interests. Over the course of many months and years, they embark on a shared, but often confrontational, spiritual journey within the closely-knit American expat community of Mexico City, and also via an exploration into the thick jungles of South America.
Daniel Craig is an underrated actor, but still has some work to do before mass audiences can comfortably watch him shed his James Bond sheen. In Queer, the initial graphic sexuality involving Craig feels a bit like a forceful attempt to prove his malleable acting chops. But once viewers get past that initial shock, they’ll be won over by Craig’s gutsy, profoundly multi-dimensional, and fully realized performance as Lee. Craig’s counterpart, Starkey, is either miscast, or the character needs energy injections. Allerton is handsome, for sure, but lacks the vivacity and mysterious intrigue that has Lee purportedly entranced. Allerton is sort of a bore.
Guadagnino makes some questionable stylistic decisions as well. Early in the film, a few modern music needle drops are baffling distractions from the 1950s Mexico City period piece setting. Later in the film, as Lee and Allerton’s journey takes them to an experimental drug research hut in the South American jungle, Guadagnino brazenly allows the story to cross the boundaries of traditional filmic storytelling. These decisions are purposeful, and some viewers may welcome Queer’s latter half becoming an artsy visceral experience, since it departs heavily from Queer’s stage play-esque, character-driven first half. However, when considering the entire movie as a singular piece of art, instead of separate segments, it’s hard to ignore its faulty stylistic cohesion. Queer ultimately relies heavily on viewer interpretation, which is an effective way to provoke heated discussions amongst audiences about the film’s stylistic choices, thematic imagery, and unresolved plot threads, but this reliance doesn’t make for the best viewing experience. To their credit, Guadagnino and Craig were ready and willing to provoke those discussions.
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Queer opens in theaters on Friday, December 6th.
