Luca Guadagnino’s erotic drama Queer explores an American expatriate’s obsessive pining for a younger man. Daniel Craig, in a 360-degree turn from his James Bond roles, plays Lee, an American flamboyantly disporting himself in Mexico City in the 1950s.
In between drinking up a storm, picking up men and hanging around with fellow gay runaway Joe (Jason Schwartzmann), Lee gets smitten by Eugene (Drew Starkey). Lee frequently wonders whether Eugene, who acknowledges Lee’s attention but also maintains a maddening distance, is “queer”.
Justin Kuritzkes’s screenplay is loosely based on the William S Burroughs novella of the same name. The first terrific hour or so of the 137-minute movie examines the contours of a relationship skewed by age, ambiguity and emotional intensity.
Lee’s pursuit of Eugene has the raw awkwardness of an adolescent crush as well as the predatory air of an older, wealthier man. The equation – which Lee characterises as similar to the Baked Alaska ice cream – changes when Lee persuades Eugene to accompany him to South America, where Lee hopes to find the powerful hallucinogenic substance ayahuasca. The movie undergoes a tonal shift too, never quite recovering.
Queer is out on MUBI, where it forms a triptych of sorts with Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final film Querelle (1982) and Wong Kar Wai’s Happy Together (1997). There are traces in Queer of Querelle’s fever dream colour palette and nautical references, as well as Happy Together’s romance between men far removed from their native land.
Acclaimed Thai cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom creates lush visuals for Queer. The anachronistic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross has the melody Pure Love, which beautifully depicts Lee’s despair.
While explicit in parts and steeped in desire, Queer doesn’t quite capture the radical strangeness of Querelle – the head-tripping in South America notwithstanding – or the gut-wrenching tenderness of Happy Together. The concentrated deftness of Queer’s early portions gives way to tortuous scenes in South America, whose highlights include dodgy visual effects and an ostentatiously eccentric Lesley Manville.
Drew Starkey’s perfectly judged performance is especially noteworthy considering the competition he is up against. Daniel Craig turns himself inside out for a career-best performance, which was bizarrely overlooked for a Best Actor in a Leading Role nomination at the Oscars.
Craig fearlessly captures the spectrum of Lee’s complexities. Lee is charming as well as grating, funny as well as obnoxious – a man steeped in loneliness, hopelessly chasing youth and love despite knowing where it might lead him.
