Queer (2024) Daniel Craig shines in the surreal world of Luca Guadagnino and William S Burroughs
“I’m not a difficult man to get along with”
As is tradition with my award winning spoiler free film reviews, my choice of “I’m not a difficult man to get along with” as my sub-heading here is a deliberate one and an instant entry point into the world of William Lee and a quite astounding, dare I say career high portrayal from Daniel Craig. For William is incredibly difficult to get along with, like or indeed love, and I saw a somewhat performative and lonely man heading for his own self-inflicted destruction through a desperation for one-sided human company, unbalanced, unequal and even disturbing infatuation for young men and as brilliantly brought to life by both Daniel Craig and director Luca Guadagnino towards the denouement of the film’s incredible first chapter, a dependency on heroin to perhaps numb the pain of seeing the life he desires to live all around him, partially living it but like the fever dream quality of the entire film, a dream always veering towards the darkest of nightmares. The scene is a simple one yet it says so much for Craig’s character, his portrayal, the use of “Leave Me Alone” by New Order and the entire film: William, drunk, broken, alone and lonely after watching the love he desires in his life in the warm smiling life of a woman, smoking, drinking, on the edge of despair, with only heroin for company…
Supplementing individual tracks from New Order, Nirvana, Sinead O’Connor and Prince is a masterful soundtrack from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross wrapped around a dizzy, dreamlike three chapter (and heartbreaking epilogue) tale of sexual debauchery, abuse of power, reckless excess, human and drug dependency amid a search of self as well as the yagé (ayahuasca) plant as a means of finding an otherworldly portal into telepathy and perhaps, a sense of meaning and purpose for a performative outsider in a world he can’t control.
Directed by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, Suspiria, Bones and All) and based on the 1985 novella of the same name by William S Burroughs, Queer benefits from outstanding portrayals from Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey and two unrecognisable performances from Jason Schwartzman and Lesley Manville and begins in a manner that sets the table for the very good film that follows and which I hope I convey briefly below:
From a pitch black screen and to the earliest stirrings of Sinead O’Connor singing Nirvana’s “All Apologies”, a distinctive and large blue font introduces the cast against a background of a mattress before a cavalcade of imagery accompanies the continuing opening credits. First we have a centipede crawling across the mattress before, and the following isn’t an entirely exhaustive list but still a long line in quickly continuing images: an overflowing ashtray and two books “Under The Volcano” and “A Season in Hell”, a watch, a wallet, another overflowing ashtray with this time a continuing burning cigarette, two lighters and two packs of cigarettes. Next: dirty laundry against a now dirty looking mattress, two passports, a viewfinder camera, seven guns, more guns, two hunting knives, two pairs of glasses, a travel guide to Ecuador, a dictionary and an Esso tourist guide to South America. And there’s more: A chessboard, “The Biography of a Grizzly” book, a pair of pliers, a yellow box of hemorrhoid medicine, more glasses (this time in a case), a syringe, several pills spilling out of a medicine bottle, a rusty and bent spoon and, coming to a conclusion now: several tattered written pages of a manuscript, a typewriter with a current working page inserted, more scattered pages of a written manuscript, pages of writing now in the shape of small houses and finally, three separate zoomed in shots of the same page of writing from a typewriter with the word “Jewish” inserted on the top line, several lines scored through with X’s and prominently “a tale of a blonde haired boy” and “his face thin and sharp with a few freckles”.
From this quite remarkable opening sequence we slowly fade to black before “Directed by Luca Guadagnino” is displayed in large blue font and “Chapter One: How Do You Like Mexico” in blue font once more on a dark black background.
We immediately cut to “William Lee” (Daniel Craig) staring intently at presumably the boy with the thin face “sharp with a few freckles” sat opposite him in a bar and as he prepares to light a cigarette he finally utters the first words of the film and “You’re not queer”. We cut to the incredibly young man sat opposite him drinking Coca-Cola from a bottle and resplendent with a face full of freckles. Smiling and talking at a million miles an hour, William (or as he’s often referred to, “Bill”) finally stops talking for the briefest of seconds as his eye catches a Jewish Star of David pendent hanging around the young man’s neck. An inappropriate observation later and with nothing in the way of a smile or even recognition coming back from the young man opposite him, William slugs his tequila in abject disappointment before we cut to a beautiful overhead shot of him walking the streets of Mexico City through the overhanging branches of a tree sprouting purple flowers as we quickly merge to a street scene of William walking alongside the young man. A whistle in the distance sees the young man quickly wishing William good luck before dashing off in the opposite direction and away from him as we next find William again shot from above and through overhanging purple flowers and now, seemingly distraught, his head in his hands.
Returning to the street scene once more, William, sitting on a bench, slowly peels his hands from his face as small purple flowers descend gently all around him as his ideal life and the life he wishes to lead also continues all around him as a couple of gay men walk behind him, arm-in-arm. William, looking dapper in an all white suit and gentleman’s hat, now buys a newspaper from a street vendor before settling himself into a chair outside a cafe to read the paper as we cut to a close-up of a cuckoo clock striking at 3 o’clock and William, now sat inside the bar, complaining “Everything in this country falls apart”. It’s immediately apparent he’s talking to himself (and maybe a little drunk) as he continues talking aloud about “picking up a boy” as his friend “Joe Guidry” (Jason Schwartzman) enters the bar and ignoring his friend immediately laments “someone stole my typewriter” before blaming one of his recent sexual partners. William has stopped talking to himself, aloud or otherwise, and Joe continues through loud and noisy slurps of his beer “in fact he’s so queer I’ve lost interest in him”. William, now clearly drunk and forever lighting one cigarette after another is barely even listening to his friend as the one-way conversation now becomes first muffled, then muted, and now replaced by the buzzing static of a nearby television. More jarring, discordant sounds now clash together as the ticking of a cuckoo clock now returns with the clock face still showing 3 o’clock, before yet more awkwardly clashing sounds and eventually back to the bar and Joe saying a passing hello to a gaggle of people he calls “Nazis” and one man in particular who “I’ll probably invite him back to my apartment and instead of beating the shit out of him like I should”.
We now cut to William holding court outside the bar with a couple of young men for company and offering to get another bottle of wine for them all to share but the younger of the two men declines as he’s working on a boat and needs to be fresh and awake early in the morning. Smiling and persistent, William asks the younger man to join him tomorrow evening for dinner and a few drinks and with the younger man again declining his offer, William tells him to “suit himself” as he picks his hat from the table and walks away. Out of earshot, the younger man exclaims to his friend “Thanks for running interference, Tom. I hope he got the idea. I like the guy but I can’t stand being alone with him. He keeps trying to go to bed with me”. As the young man continues with his barbed comments about William and “It’s what I don’t like about queers. Can’t keep it on the basis of friendship”, we cut to a slow motion overhead shot of William leaving the bar and via another overhead shot, William throws his cigarette into the street amid another slow motion captured shot and the beginnings of Nirvana’s “Come As You Are”.
Again now on street level, William is now captured walking straight to camera before another angle and another slow motion shot of him walking the late night streets of Mexico City. Still in slow motion and preparing to light yet another cigarette, William bumps into a man leaving a small curbside establishment as a close-up shows his attention drawn to the other side of the street and a large crowd gathered around the beginning of a cock fight. Lighting a cigarette, a regular camera shot shows William smiling at the prospect of the entertainment on the other side of the street and soon close-ups demonstrate his smiling delight as the fight commences, before further close-ups show his delight at a passing gaggle of young men and then, one man in particular that he simply cannot take his eyes away from. Yet more close-ups of William (against an astonishing blue and black coloured backdrop behind him) show him transfixed on the beautiful man shot in slow motion walking on the other side of the street before stopping, smiling briefly at William, and exiting the frame. We cut back to an open mouthed William astonished at the beautiful young man, his eyes never leaving him as he walks away down the street.
William is now seen walking in a rush to his local bar, ordering a shot of absinthe and after downing it in a quick gulp, looks around the bar, only to spot the very same young man from earlier, alone with a bottle of beer at a corner table…
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon