Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Luca Guadagnino
Starring: Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman, Henrique Zaga, Omar Apollo, Andra
Ursuta
Remember that extended closing shot of Luca Guadagnino's
Call Me by Your Name? That close-up of Chalamet's face as he conveys the full
stomach-churning sadness of an unrequited love? Daniel Craig has
that look in his eyes throughout Queer, Guadagnino's adaptation of William S. Burroughs' unfinished 1985
novella. Craig's character has more than three decades on the wide-eyed
teenage boy played by Chalamet in the Italian filmmaker's earlier work,
yet we still get the sense that Craig's William Lee is experiencing true
heartbreak for the first time in his previously cynical life.
Leaving the US for 1950s Mexico City, where he can more readily indulge
his heroin addiction, Lee sleeps around with young men, some of whom
indulge him for money, some for fun. When he sets eyes on Eugene Allerton
(Drew Starkey), a young American bumming around after leaving the
Navy, Lee becomes instantly obsessed. Initially he befriends the younger
man, unsure of his sexual preferences, before eventually luring him into
his bed. Even then he's not entirely convinced that Allerton is gay, and
Allerton's cold, post-coital indifference drives Lee mad, like a
schoolgirl obsessing over why her boyfriend is taking so long to text
back.
To paraphrase Gordon Lightfoot, Lee feels like a ghost Allerton can't
see. At several points Guadagnino literalises this idea by visualising
Lee's spirit leaving his body to embrace Allerton in a way in which his
physical self is unable. At another point Lee turns into TV static, as
though his life is a channel going off the air for another night, sans the
fanfare of a national anthem. Lee's drug experiences allow for much
surreal experimentation on Guadagnino's part, following the lead of David
Cronenberg, who previously adapted Burroughs' "unfilmable"
Naked Lunch.
Here however there's a conflict between the central relationship drama
and the hallucinogenic interludes, with the latter often coming across as
distracting and tonally jarring. The surreal sequences here are similar to
those found in Terry Gilliam's Hunter S. Thompson adaptation
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, often employing digital effects that are so unconvincing they appear
unfinished. When Lee is simply drunk rather than stoned,
Queer plays a lot like a gay cousin of Marco Ferreri's
adaptation of Charles Bukowski's Tales of Ordinary Madness, though Craig plays Lee with a layer of vulnerability in contrast to Ben
Gazzara's hardened Hank Chinaski.
I guess if you make enough adaptations of gonzo books by beat writers
they all begin to blur into one, and watching middle-aged men get wasted
and chase sexual conquests young enough to be their grandchildren grows
tiresome. There are some who love "stoner comedy," who consider the acid
trip sequence in Wolf of Wall Street the peak of screen
comedy, but I can't say I'm a fan. In fact, there's little I find less
amusing than watching someone else caned off their face. Guadagnino seems
conflicted regarding his anti-hero's addiction, veering from scenes that
portray Lee as a tragic, lonely figure shooting up in his
sweat-and-cum-stained room to those that make it all seem like a
lark.
As Guadagnino's prior work would suggest, Queer is best
when it's focussed on the messiness of its central characters'
relationship. Craig is excellent at conveying Lee's shift from cynical and
world weary to smitten and obsessed, a world away from the suaveness of
James Bond. Not since Peter Strickland's
The Duke of Burgundy
has a movie so vividly captured the stress of being in a relationship with
a younger party, and how old it really makes you feel. There are shades of
Death in Venice to Lee's exasperated pursuit of Allerton.
The latter is an enigma, often filmed in slow motion that creates the
sense that he's floating through the world, a spirit only Lee can truly
see.
Shot in the studios of Cinecittà, Queer's mid-century Mexico City has the carefully constructed artificiality of
Las Vegas in Coppola's
One from the Heart, or of
Kaurismaki's Helsinki. The bar where American expats congregate could be a set from
a Roy Andersson film. Guadagnino doubles down on purposely taking us out of his film's time
and place through the use of anachronistic '80s and '90s rock and pop
tunes, but you may find this element more distracting than
distancing.
The trouble with adapting an unfinished work is that Guadagnino and his
regular screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes struggle to pin down the
heart of Queer's story, if a story can even be said to exist here. The film is episodic
in structure, and at times it seems to completely lose focus, especially
amid a late diversion to a South American jungle where an unrecognisable
Lesley Manville pops up as a psychotronic Colonel Kurtz. Guadagnino
and Kuritzkes devise their own ending, but it plays more like an outtake
from Twin Peaks than something in dialogue with Burroughs'
work. Much like the enigmatic young object of Lee's obsession, you may
find Queer entrancing to gaze at, but you'll be frustrated
by its emotional distance.
Queer is in UK/ROI cinemas from
December 13th.
