Much has been made about Daniel Craig's appearance in Queer, an adaptation of a 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the Beat writer best known for Naked Lunch. A movie titled Queer marks an obvious departure for Craig, the actor who starred in five James Bond movies.
Queer takes Craig as far away from Bond as possible, giving him the role of a gay, heroin-addicted writer living in Mexico City during the 1950s, a decade that, at least in cliche, was rooted in conformity, repression, and exaltation of the mainstream.
A literary exile of sorts, Craig's William Lee spends more time drinking than writing in the seedy digs he rents. Dissolute and needy, Lee never leaves his small apartment without a pistol strapped to his side. Meant for protection, the gun also becomes emblematic of an hombre image, a man willing to go the violent distance if necessary. He offers a reasonable approximation of what might be called the William Burroughs look.
Although he has little trouble finding sex, Lee stumbles when it comes to deeper relationships. He sees an opportunity for more than a fling when he meets Eugene (Drew Starkey), a handsome young photographer who we know will frustrate Lee's desires. Eugene quickly makes it clear that he has little interest in emotionally connected relationships.
Persistent to the point of obsession, Lee clings to Eugene, who seems untethered from nearly everything.
Eventually, Lee persuades Eugene to accompany him on an Ecuadorian adventure. Lee plans to take a drug he's heard can make people telepathic. He hopes a psychedelic will enable him to bond with Eugene, assuming Eugene will reciprocate. Seen from the outside, the idea that they might become soul mates becomes the delusional denouement of an exotic travelogue.
Working from a screenplay by Justin Kuritzkes, director Luca Guadagnino uses the last third of his movie to conjure images of psychedelic tripping; he adds a touch of surrealism to the proceedings, a disorienting arrival considering the carefully studied grit of its Mexico City scenes. (Much of Queer was shot in studios.)
Guadagnino has built a reputation for “art” movies with gay content, Call Me by Your Name being a prime example. The sex scenes in Queer are more graphic than anything Guadagnino included in Call Me by Your Name.
A small supporting cast relieves the movie's thematic claustrophobia. Lesley Manville appears as an eccentric botanist who has been studying South American psychedelics, notably a drug called Yage. A resident of the jungle wilds, she's gone a bit bonkers.
In what might be his most interesting work to date, Jason Schwartzman plays Joe Guidry, a gay friend of Lee's who lives in Mexico City and who seems to enjoy rambling on about his many trysts. Joe's comfortable with himself in ways Lee can't be.
Unfolding during a sometimes fatiguing two hours and 15 minutes, Queer slogs its way through three chapters and an epilogue, providing Craig with a platform from which to take a deep dive into alienation, self-abasement, and existential loneliness.
But Queer has a dated quality. Burroughs wrote Queer in the late 1940s, when everything about it -- including its title -- might have seemed startling; for some. the novel became an immersive wallow in the defiance associated with living on the cheap, prowling dirty streets and sleeping on dirty sheets.
To the extent that Queer can be seen as a thinly disguised memoir, it might generate interest among Burroughs enthusiasts or those who want to remind themselves that Craig, who has appeared in some 40 movies, successfully has escaped the Bond prison.
Queer gives Craig plenty with which to work, but the movie -- part endurance test and part curiosity -- never coheres into the bold, challenging work that must have been intended.
I'd call it a missed opportunity, but I'm not sure for what.
