QUEER: Bond, the later years

By Sarah Jester 3/4 stars

Luca Guadagnino had a banner year. This summer, he swept up the world in a boundary-pushing and undeniably sexy love triangle on the tennis court, only to bring our walls crashing down this December via a Call Me By Your Name meets Naked Lunch tableau. 


Image credit: MUBI

Queer stars Daniel Craig as William Lee and newcomer Drew Starkey as Eugene Allerton, plus support from a nearly unrecognizable Jason Schwartzmann as Lee’s longtime friend Joe Guidry. The James Bond veteran delivers a career-best performance in Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical novella. As a lifetime Bond fan, I’m well-versed in Craig’s long-running portrayal of the pinnacle of male fitness and heterosexuality. His metamorphosis into gay expat junkie Lee is nothing short of shocking.


Opposite him, Starkey is haunting as Eugene, a former Navyman. It’s addiction at first sight for Lee—the kind of inextricable affair he won’t shake until his dying days. The mysterious Eugene is impenetrable; unreadable; unattainable, a perfect foil.


“I’m not queer, I’m disembodied,” intones Lee in several dream sequences. His unsuccessful crusade to reach Eugene’s disembodied mind is made all the more devastating by Eugene’s drug-induced admission of heterosexuality, not to mention Guidry’s earlier encouragement to “just ask him.”


Guadagnino’s dream sequences are evocative of Cronenberg’s visual style, particularly what we’ve seen in the latter’s 1991 adaptation of Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. There are some struggles with proper lighting throughout Queer, but those are properly atoned for within the eerie tableaus and picturesque miniatures throughout the dream sequences. Starkey and Craig’s ayahuasca-fueled nude duet in the jungle is heartbreakingly stunning. I’d love to have a chat with the VFX team.


The entire third act of Queer is a departure from Burroughs’ novella. He began the writing process while awaiting trial for the murder of his wife, Joan Vollmer, leaving the story incomplete. In lieu of concluding the movie at Burroughs’ endpoint, Guadagnino sends Lee and Eugene to Ecuador in search of ayahuasca, the key to fulfilling Lee’s telepathic desires. Aside from the actual ayahuasca trip, Luca lost me here. It’s such a stark visual and tonal shift that it feels inauthentic.


That’s not to mention the oddly poor sound mixing for dialogue. Although the dream sequences boast clear, sharp line delivery, it’s very difficult to make out what folks are saying throughout the whole movie. Especially in the Ecuadorian rainforest. And that’s a problem! One could argue that the muffled dialogue is meant to emphasize Lee’s “disembodied” condition and penchant for telepathy, but if that’s true, it’s executed poorly.


Moving on to the epilogue. Infamously, Vollmer was shot dead by Burroughs in a game of William Tell. Guadagnino pays homage to the closeted Beat Generation author in Queer’s epilogue as Lee shoots Eugene William Tell-style. This act is bittersweet. Though Lee has lost the love of his life, he is freed from addiction through death. It doesn’t hurt that this scene can be interpreted as a callback to Craig’s fatal game of William Tell in Skyfall, which co-stars Javier Bardem as the ultimate queer villain.


I’ve saved the best for last here. Craig and Starkey trade murky glances over 2 hours and 15 minutes of a devastatingly longing smash score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The prolific duo truly produces their best work for Guadagnino. (The Challengers score certainly took over the clubs this summer.) If anything, I’m glad the dialogue was muted and muffled if I could hear this score better. These two are some of the most talented film composers working today. “The Hand That Feeds,” anyone?


Guadagnino’s 2024 foray into surrealism is revelatory. He’s certainly evolved as a surrealist tastemaker since 2018’s Suspiria. Bring back the studio system so he can keep Reznor and Ross on personal retainer for life.

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