Film review: ‘QUEER’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
Queer is Call Me By Your Name and Challengers director Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs semi-autobiographical 1985 novella. That book is known for conjuring a visceral, sweaty and seedy world fuelled by the lead character’s self-loathing. Guadagnino’s film while artful and inventive is too manicured to capture this primal world.
Queer sees Daniel Craig playing William Lee, an ex-pat middle-aged American living in Mexico City in the early 1950’s. He seems to spend most of his time guzzling tequila, shooting up heroin and hooking up with young men within the local gay community. When he spies clean cut young former GI Eugene (Drew Starkey) he pursues him relentlessly. Despite a vigorous sexual encounter and the beginnings of a relationship, uncertainty about Eugene’s sexuality confounds and upends Lee’s life.
The character of Lee is the centre of this film so the movie’s success rests on Craig’s performance. Craig, dressed in baggy suits and crumpled shirts, gives Lee a louche charisma that mixes swagger, vulnerability and a relentless self-centred drive but he never quite draws us in to become someone we feel particularly strongly about either through affection or contempt. Also, Craig never completely disappears into the character – I was thinking throughout the film that this is Daniel Craig playing against type. As Eugene, Starkey is solid but not especially compelling in a less showy role. In two odd supporting roles, a hirsute Jason Schwartzman offers some comedy relief as Lee’s quirky, acerbic friend Joe while Leslie Manville gleefully chews the scenery as a crazed doctor whom Lee and Eugene encounter on a trip to the Ecuadorian jungle.
The film was shot largely in Rome with a set designed to replicate 1950’s Mexico City. While some scenes are artfully composed with a few sequences recalling the work of renowned American painter Edward Hopper, a little too often it looks like a set and some questionable CGI sequences don’t help.
The film’s second half, in which William (suffering badly from heroin withdrawal) and Eugene head to South America in search of a hallucinogenic plant, has some impressively unhinged moments. The sequence in which they ingest the drug and have freaky grotesque hallucinations is unexpectedly confronting. In the latter stages, as Lee’s mind seemingly comes apart, the film also slips into a kind of fever dream chaos reminiscent of the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Here tragic aspects of Burrough’s life including the shooting of his wife Joan Vollmer are alluded to in nightmarish fashion. For this reviewer, this more experimental approach was the most interesting part of the film.
Queer has impressive moments but it doesn’t tantalise us with Burrough’s unique personality or immerse us in his world as much as it should.
Nick’s rating: ***
Genre: Drama.
Classification: MA15+.
Director(s): Luca Guadagnino.
Release date: 6th Feb 2025.
Running time: 137 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.