This review of Luca Guadagnino’s Queer was originally published as part of our TIFF 2024 coverage.
In Luca Guadagnino’s latest masterpiece Queer, desire is addiction. This isn’t subtext. The first chapter shows a man consumed with lust, the second consumed with heroin, the third a combination as an ayahuasca trip allows for a taste of transcendence.
But a Guadagnino adaptation of a William S. Burroughs novel was always going to be more complex than this pat connection. The object of desire for protagonist William Lee (Daniel Craig) is as important as the desire itself. Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) is young and handsome. No one is clean cut in sweaty 1940s Mexico City but he comes close. He shows up at Lee’s local bar with his arm around a woman. He’s not brash like Lee or his best friend Joe (Jason Schwartzman) nor faggy like the gays Lee and Joe dismiss. He’s not cold either. He gives just enough to suggest interest. When he smiles at Lee, when he talks to Lee, when he — finally — lets Lee suck and fuck him, it’s fleeting. He will always pull away, not just from Lee, but from the queer life Lee leads.
Allerton is an idealized figure for Lee. (With their glasses and similar hair coloring, Allerton could even appear to be an idealized figure of Lee.) His disconnect from his queerness is a pull for Lee. The same way Lee wants to distance himself from the more feminine gays, he wants to run toward Allerton. It’s not just an addiction to desire, it’s an addiction to self-loathing.
That’s not to say the film lacks in desire itself. The same way drugs can kill you while providing genuine pleasure, sex can be motivated by both self-loathing and love. Lee’s longing is shown through a dreamy double exposure — Lee touching, kissing, caressing even when in reality he and Allerton are still inches apart.
When they do fuck, Guadagnino makes up for any critiques of Call Me By Your Name. Lee’s need is pulled out of metaphor. The film has the kind of carnal gay sex we rarely see on-screen — at least not in English language films of this budget. These moments are the closest Lee comes to having any grasp on Allerton and Guadagnino lets us sit in the raw and romantic. The taste of sweat and cum is palpable — the beauty is too.
The entire film has a soft, ethereal feel from the sex to the drugs to the late night wanderings. Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s talents were on full display in his previous collaborations with Guadagnino, but this film makes it clear why the director was drawn to Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s long-time collaborator. There’s clear influence in the images and in how the film utilizes magical realism. Despite the source material, Queer would pair better with Tropical Malady than other Boroughs adaptation Naked Lunch.
Daniel Craig embodies Lee’s desire with an idiosyncratic charm. He may yearn for Allerton’s neutral normalcy, but, as portrayed by Craig, he’s undeniably queer. This isn’t shown with the obvious cues often inhabited when famous actors play gay. Instead, Craig finds the layers in Lee’s queer presentation — how he plays it up and how he tries to quiet it down.
Lee is chasing Allerton, but he’s really chasing a sense of self. This isn’t just a film about queer characters with a queer form — it’s also a film with very specifically queer motivations and conflicts. This is a film for anyone who has every desired assimilation, who has ever looked for self-love in self-hate, who has ever sought control with a desperate fuck.
Queer is now playing in theatres.
