Review: Queer

Image courtesy of A24.

Luca Guadagnino is on a roll and staying busy. His first film of 2024, "Challengers," was the sexiest movie about tennis ever made and his latest, an adaptation of William Burrough's "Queer," is a period piece in an exotic locale with anachronistic needle drops (Nirvana, Prince, and New Order, to name a few) and a touch of surrealism. He has already wrapped production on another film starring Julia Roberts that will release next year.

"Queer" is, to my knowledge, only the second Burroughs adaptation - the other, of course, is David Cronenberg's bizarre translation of "Naked Lunch" - and it's easy to see why. Burroughs' work is often freakishly outlandish, surreal, unsettling, and sexually graphic to the extent that it doesn't really lend itself to cinematic adaptation. Not surprisingly, Guadagnino's new film exhibits all of these traits.

The picture opens in Mexico, circa 1954, where a gay, drug-addicted American writer named William Lee (Daniel Craig) is seemingly wasting away and cavorting with regulars - including fellow barfly Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman, nearly unrecognizable) - at a local dive. There, he stumbles upon a young, handsome, and bespectacled Eugene (Drew Starkey), who may or may not be gay, but who goes to bed with William anyway. 

The film's first half feels as if it should be keeping company with Luchino Visconti's "Death in Venice" (based on the Thomas Mann novel) or Gerard Blain's "Les Amis" - in other words, an older man becoming obsessed with a younger one, although Eugene is old enough for William's interest in him to not be borderline pedophilic as in the other two films. William is smitten with Eugene and does his best to keep his attention occupied during the film's multiple semi-graphic sexual encounters.

But the picture goes in a completely different direction once William - now strung out and seeking more drugs - convinces Eugene to accompany him to South America, where they go deep into the jungle searching for a psychedelic plant of some sort. There, they meet a doctor (a truly unrecognizable Lesley Manville) who is suspicious that the two men are there to steal her research.

Things, from this point, just get truly strange before jumping ahead some years when William - now seemingly sober - arrives back in town, only to get bad news about Eugene's whereabouts. The film then skips ahead again many years - and seemingly back to William's obsession with the younger man - in a finale that's confounding, surreal, and sad.

Guadagnino has dabbled in surrealism before - his much-debated "Suspiria" remake was full of it and his cannibal romance "Bones and All" featured some truly bizarre moments. His films are also known for - ahem - bringing the heat, as evidenced in "Call Me By Your Name" (his best to date) and the wildly entertaining "Challengers," which is my favorite of his 2024 offerings.

"Queer" marries these two techniques. There's plenty of sex - a few scenes are bordering NC-17 territory - and a fair amount of surreal touches. It's less plot-driven than an accumulation of incidents centering around a love story that is self-destructive. William should know better than to fall for the aloof Eugene, whereas the younger man should know better than to get the older one's hopes up.

Through it all, Craig gives one of his finest performances to date and among the year's most fearless. There are times when the film feels as if it might be trolling the audience - such as the absurdity of the trip to the jungle and a moment late in the film in which one of the most notorious scenes from Burroughs' real and fictional life is reenacted - as to whether it's all a bit too much. But on whichever side of that argument a viewer might fall, it's doubtful they won't be engaged one way or another. This is a unique entry into a filmography that has become increasingly interesting.