Review: Queer

Directed by: Luca Guadagnino

Written by: Justin Kuritzkes

Starring: Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman, Henrique Zaga, Lesley Manville

Rating: [2.5/5]

It’s often that I write about films that start out incredibly well but falter towards the end. At times this faltering simply represents a slight drop-off in quality or, in the worst cases, a complete dive from a cliff. Unfortunately, Queer sits in the worst case, as the film starts out in such a beautiful manner but makes a decision in the second half to become something completely different. That resulted in making this an emotionally impactful film, one where I counted the seconds for the final credit to appear on screen. 

Living out his days in Mexico City, William Lee (Daniel Craig) spends most days drinking, pontificating at bars, and hooking up with men he finds attractive. When he locks eyes with an American GI, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), he begins to look upon him as someone he cannot live without. Eugene plays a bit hard to get for William as they both look at their sexual orientation a bit differently. 

Trying to explain the drop-off in quality from the first and second half of this film hurts in the way it completely squanders away everything built up in the beginning where it presents such a beautiful display of longing. William, as a character, has a vein of patheticness in the way he navigates his life where he just bounces around not doing much. He hangs out at these bars just looking to converse and engage in some sex if everything lines up well for him. A reality that gets made worse, in a way, for him as this fixation builds for Eugene unlike anything else. This pitiful display by him should not be seen as pejorative but rather the creation of a character so deeply longing for something, which he hopes Eugene can provide for him. 

Everything happening in Mexico City represents the very best of the film as William so desperately wants the affection of Eugene. Moments where they sit together and a mirage of his arm reaching out to the younger man exhibits such a beautiful yearning that makes William such a lovable character. This yearning pops right out of the screen and makes itself pretty clear as he navigates these feelings he has that cannot be quelled by anything other than reciprocation by Eugene. Whether he receives it in full as desired remains the question, but the setup of this dynamic between them brought so much promise, which then began the rapid descent down the quality scale. 

Once the setting changes from Mexico City, the decline of this film becomes quite evident, and when they reach a doctor’s home in an Ecuadorian jungle, it pretty much lost me. The intense longing of the first act trades itself in for this trippy experience William wants to have with finding the yagé plant somewhere in South America. This obsession with finding it mixed in with the burning desire he continues to have for Eugene, who accompanies him on this trip, lessens the power of the film and then completely runs off of the rails. When we have to sit there and watch this man go through an ayahuasca high, the film makes an important narrative decision, and unfortunately it results in something that completely takes out the flame it had lit previously. By that time, the second half made the its runtime feel like an eternity as it simply refused to end as any momentum remaining from the first act could not withstand what the rest of the film sought to provide. 

As much as Queer presents such an engaging lead character to follow, its core issues stemming from its narrative decisions ultimately let it down. Daniel Craig puts forth his most vulnerable performance to date, where he moves from bravado to a character so hopeless and fragile that he allows even the weakest of breezes to knock him over. He sells much of what this character tries to present to us through his performance, but ultimately all of this comes in service of a movie that got in its own way with this infatuation with finding and experiencing a particular drug that detracted from everything it did well in Mexico City. Truly a shame to see a film do that to itself.