On paper, it may seem like director Luca Guadagnino’s two 2024 releases are entirely different. The colossal hit “Challengers” was a hard pivot from the Italian director’s typical style, teeming with a bold, pulsating sexiness far more overt than most of his other efforts. The film was also Guadagnino’s most accessible yet, capturing a sex-starved zeitgeist looking to latch on to something truly horny amid modern sex scene discourse. But after making a hard tilt toward the mainstream just seven months ago, Guadagnino’s latest film “Queer” pivots back toward his softer, narratively opaque roots. And though the two movies look like diametrical opposites, they share a pair of undeniable throughlines: the aching, all-consuming feeling of desire and the remarkable actors chosen to depict it.
“Queer,” adapted from William S. Burroughs’ 1985 novella, dials down the sheer athletic intensity of its predecessor in Guadagnino’s filmography. Still, the salty scent of sweat and the weight of unspoken yearning lingers in the atmosphere, waiting for a wholly committed Daniel Craig to saunter into the frame in a white linen suit to pick up where “Challengers” left off. In “Queer,” Craig plays William Lee, an addict in 1950s Mexico City whose dependence on drugs and alcohol is as torturous as his penchant for gay sex — though he’s better at concealing the former than the latter. Like any functioning addict, Lee is one push from falling off the edge where he has so carefully perched himself. When he meets the strapping young army vet Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), Lee is thrust into free fall, stricken by compulsion and fixation unlike anything he’s experienced before.
Though “Queer” could be seen as a thematic companion to Guadagnino’s 2017 film “Call Me By Your Name” — which was adapted from equally controversial source material — the movies are more alike in feeling than form. With “Queer,” Guadagnino and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes take an abstract approach to fleshing out the intricacies of Burroughs’ work. Through protracted, surrealist drug trips, striking production design, and sex scenes that are as erotic as they are realistic, Guadagnino manages to adapt the otherwise unadaptable, challenging his actors as much as he does his audience. Those aspects of the film are formidable and will surely leave some viewers bewildered, if not irritated. But that’s precisely how the raw pain of love often feels, and “Queer” conveys that unique torment more exquisitely than any other film this year.
Falling in love is, of course, frequently mortifying, and Lee is no stranger to embarrassing himself in front of his paramours. When he first spots Allerton strolling past a cock fight in the street, Lee is transfixed. (Surely, it’s no accident that this lust-at-first-sight moment happens at such an appropriately named event.) In the Ship Ahoy, one of the many local bars that Lee and his band of homosexual flâneurs frequent, Lee orders a shot of mezcal for courage before standing up to bow in Allerton’s direction. The advance is brushed off by its recipient, and Lee exits in a huff to pursue a lover elsewhere, ultimately bringing a young man (Omar Apollo) back to a motel where the stark red hallway walls reflect the passion that takes place behind them.
Lee uses heroin to escape the feeling of triviality, but when Allerton warms up to him, Lee’s focus shifts to a new drug: yagé. Lee is fascinated by the plant, specifically the rumblings he’s heard that it can be used for telepathy. At first, his mentions of yagé are fleeting, mere ways of making interesting conversation with a lover who only carries a passing interest in Lee. But despite Allerton rebuking any queerness in himself, Lee descends into an obsession with both the young man and yagé, convincing Allerton to accompany him on a trip to South America to find anyone who can administer the drug he believes will open the door between the two men.
Craig is known for playing characters with a tough exterior, and in that way, “Queer” is a novel film for the seasoned actor. He’s never had a role quite like Lee, which allows him to approach the world with far less certitude than a James Bond or Benoit Blanc. Craig finds a blistering beauty in that ambiguity, reducing himself to a sniveling, lovestruck addict who wants nothing more than to understand why the person he’s falling for can’t open up in the same way Lee can. Starkey’s Allerton is just as lost as Lee, though far less forthright about it. As he moves Allerton between fascination and disinterest, Starkey — best known for being one of the leads in Netflix’s “Outer Banks” — matches Craig’s experienced aplomb and proves himself a stunning new talent.
When “Queer” makes its way to its third act in the South American jungles, things take a turn for the bizarre. But it’s in that abnormality where the film finds its most moving passages, given just enough comic relief by an almost unrecognizable turn from Lesley Manville as a wacky scientist who happens to be the world’s top yagé researcher. The drug trip sequences are inevitable, and by the time we reach them, Guadagnino has already done so much to remind us of the suffering we endure when those we love are just out of reach. The ephemeral caress of a lover’s touch is stunningly depicted through literal translucence, giving “Queer” some of its most unforgettable images whose only competition is the yagé scenes. For a director who has spent his entire career portraying the splendor and sadness of love in equal measure, Guadagnino’s third act isn’t shocking so much as it is thoroughly touching.
“Queer” demonstrates that there is no other working director who can so vividly recall love’s immense power. Guadagino adapts the unadaptable, turning out highly original, stylish films that draw equally resplendent performances from his actors, and his latest is no different, even if it is far more ambiguous. Prioritizing a feeling over narrative sense is a daring risk in contemporary cinema, but with “Queer,” Guadagnino asserts that it’s a worthwhile one. Here, he asks us to think back to our great loves — realized or unrequited — and warns us that the longing never goes away. Impossible beauty only becomes more intense with the knowledge that you may never know its full extent. All we have is a caress, a stare or a lingering touch. And sometimes, those things are so powerful that we’ll go to the end of the world just for the chance to understand someone a little better.
"Queer" opens in New York and Los Angeles on Nov. 27 and nationwide on Dec. 13.
