'Queer' Review: A Story Of Longing And Lost Love [TIFF 2024]
THE latest film from auteur Luca Guadagnino is sure to turn heads this awards season with it’s bold storytelling and captivating performances.
The newest collaboration between filmmaker Luca Guadagnino and Writer Justin Kuritzke marks the second time they’ve worked together on a film, most recently just earlier this year with the hit film ‘Challengers’. Audiences were talking about how the former was a very risqué subject matter with and visuals but compare to ‘Queer’, it feels like a Disney movie. The film stars Daniel Craig, in a career defining role, playing Lee and Drew Starkey, a young up and comer that some may know from the show ‘Outer Banks’, playing Allerton, an American navy serviceman as the two of them navigate a somewhat tumultuous partnership in 1940s Mexico. As the two become closer to each other, the film becomes more and more unhinged in how to convey its themes of longing and denial. starting off as an erotic romance in a beautifully shot Mexico that eventually lands in a psychedelic dream sequence in the jungles of South America.
It can be hard to adjust once it gets to the more trippy elements of the movie as it feels very sensual in the beginning, but that leads into the element of Lee being a addict looking for a mysterious plant that he had read about called yage (ayahuasca). once they discover the plant together and end up taking it, the sequences that follow are strange and intense but further plays into denial as a theme, because once it is over, Starkey’s character does not want to admit what he had just taken a part of, possibly a metaphor for denying one’s sexuality due to guilt or shame. This feels especially heavy in the last stage of the film when we get an older Lee hearing the voice of Allerton as he drifts away, signifying Lee’s undying love for him many years later.
Daniel Craig has never been more brutally raw in a film before, usually opting for more action based roles, most notably as James Bond, or fun and whimsical roles, like that of Benoit Blanc in the ‘Knives Out’ films. this performance though, he opts for a more emotional and sad archetype that is sure to make people turn their heads and consider him for the upcoming Oscars race in the Best Leading Actor category. what he manages to pull off here is nothing short of amazing. The film is based on a 1985 novel of the same name by William S. Bouroughs, it is semi-biographical so when one takes on this type of role, they must do so with tenderness and care, and that is exactly what Craig does here. His costar in Starkey has a more subtle role but requires just as much care. especially in the latter points of the film where Starkey’s character must face his repressed sexuality amidst this hallucinatory experience is poignant and brave, even with his eventual denial. Jason Schwartzman may steal all the scenes he is in though as a supporting character and friend of Lee’s, always telling stories of his mistrials as a gay man looking for one night stands. It’s a hilarious and refreshing role that keeps the film light on its feet with surprisingly comedic moments all throughout the movie.
Burroughs story is a sad one and knowing his life provides significant context as to some of the imagery dpisplayed in the movie. In 1951 in mexico city, burroughs shot and killed his wife because of drunken stupidity. He had first claimed that they were attempting a 'William Tell' stunt, in which a person shoots a gun at something placed on top of someones head. This is very important in relation to the film and its darker elements. He later admitted that he had dropped the gun on a table while he was drunk, trying to impress his friends, and it went off and shot his wife. He had actually developed a heroin addiction before the incident and was the contributing factor as to why he had left the states in the first place. This goes hand in hand with his character in the movie, who goes by Lee because that is the monicker Burroughs took on early in his career, going by William Lee.
Luca Guadagnino is no stranger to erotic storytelling, his first breakout hit being ‘Call Me By Your Name’ being a modern classic in LGBTQ+ cinema, but with this film he throws all the innuendos out the window and shows real, raw, sometimes uncomfortable imagery. Not for the bigots who cannot stand the thought of two men being together, but for the fact of it feeling so true to life that it causes the viewer to look upon their own selves and truly face these facts of life. if not that then to empathize with what they are witnessing as the characters face several different obstacles, from drug addiction, Denial of one’s true self, and th journey of life as a whole. It is uncomfortable to face these facts of life but Guadagnino takes it head on and doesn't look back.