‘Queer’ review: Daniel Craig’s sweaty, sexy gay drama is far from James Bond

Premiering in competition at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, Luca Guadagnino’s latest film is an adaptation of Queer, a 1985 novel by Beat Generation icon William S. Burroughs. Reportedly one of Guadagnino’s favourite novels, it’s adapted by screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, who previously collaborated with the director on Challengers, and reportedly began writing the script midway through the shoot.

Set in 1950 and split into three chapters and an epilogue, the film stars Daniel Craig as William Lee (Burroughs’ frequent pen name), an American expat in Mexico City, who spends his days and nights cruising gay bars and picking up young men, as well as mingling with other members of a small homosexual expat community. One night, Lee’s attention is drawn to young American student Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a newcomer to the city, and the pair eventually begin a love affair, with Lee persuading Allerton to join him on a research trip to Ecuador, with the intention of investigating the telepathic properties of yagé, or ayahuasca.

Guadagnino establishes a heady atmosphere early on, a veritable haze of smoke, booze, drugs and sex, as Lee prowls the city, flirting outrageously. He also creates a strong sense of place, so much so that by the end of the movie, you feel like you are intimately familiar with the Mexico City gay bar scene in 1950.

Similarly, Kuritzkes’ script captures Burroughs’ distinctive dialogue, particularly when Lee is attempting to cajole Allerton into spending the day with him by promising to compensate him for lost earnings. “Like the Wallace administration, I subsidise non-production”, he purrs, and it works.

As for Queer‘s sex scenes, Guadagnino brings a considerable degree of heat to Lee’s various encounters and it’s fair to say that you’ll see more of Daniel Craig than you were probably expecting, even if it’s still less than certain sections of the audience might have been hoping for. On that note, it’s worth pointing out that some of those encounters may have ended up on the cutting room floor, as the original cut submitted to Venice was reportedly between 185 and 200 minutes long and the current version is a mere 130 minutes. Director’s Cut, anyone?

Without giving too much away, Guadagnino’s most inspired touch is the surreal way he dovetails the drug-taking and the sex in the final act, with an inspired piece of digital effects work making it seem as if Lee and Allerton are blurring together, literally becoming one. As a visual metaphor for sex, love and connection, it works beautifully and is simultaneously both touching and weird.

Craig delivers one of his best performances to date as Lee, investing him with a palpable world-weariness and making you feel every moment of hope, desire, ecstasy and crushing disappointment. Starkey is excellent too, generating strong chemistry with Craig, but the supporting cast honours are jointly stolen by a portly Jason Schwartzman (as fellow homosexual expat Joe Guidry) and Britain’s own Lesley Manville, whose make-up job as jungle botanist Dr Cotter has to be seen to be believed.

If there’s a problem with Queer, it’s only that it assumes a degree of foreknowledge of Burroughs and his work, as there are several enjoyable references to Naked Lunch that are likely to pass over the heads of casual audiences. Similarly, the ending feels a little abrupt, which is perhaps appropriate, given that the novel was never finished.