Love and Loneliness collide in “Queer”

With “Queer,” Luce Guadagnino has further cemented himself as one of the great romantic storytellers.  The director of “Call Me by Your Name” and this year’s “Challengers” continues his winning formula of mixing complex human beings together inside unique habitats that mirror the emotions at play.  We gently observe these stories full of deeply realized people, and just as we notice how immersed in their world we’ve become, Guadagnino is bold enough to push us even further into the deep end.

His latest film is a sun-stained vintage postcard of Mexico, and wandering the quiet city streets is William Lee (brought to life by Daniel Craig).  It’s a picturesque paradise for the 1950s, but this expat pushing 50 is disengaged, or rather, as he calls it, disembodied.  He cycles effortlessly through gay bars and hotel rooms, addicted to the vices of drugs, alcohol, one-night stands and self-hatred.  That is until his eyes fall upon Eugene, a young former seaman played by Drew Starkey.

As with Guadagnino’s previous films, their developing relationship is not a simple obstacle blocking some happily-ever-after, but rather a look at what people take from one another as they fall in and out of love.  Lee’s investment is more based on nostalgia for an optimistic youth, while Eugene treats their relationship as a crystal ball, showing where his own life may end up if he continues down Lee’s path.  The sadness of this dynamic is not lost on either character, but neither one’s heart desires to fully call it quits.  That Justin Kuritzkes’ script is able to balance this sorry foundation with enough levity to dodge melodrama is a great accomplishment.  It may be a unique and specific set of circumstances, but the emotion mined out of these characters is universal.

Craig brings to the film his strongest, most vulnerable performance yet.  The actor has never been shy about his dislike of the James Bond character he has retired from, and one gets the sense while watching that he wanted to play a role as far from him as possible.  Lee is still a charismatic man with a lavishness to his friendly lifestyle, but only because he’s going through the motions.  Craig supplies a hollowness behind Lee’s tired eyes, desperate for a distraction via substance abuse and empty sex.  He may fully believe that he can hide from his own loneliness, but Guadagnino’s camera never lets the audience fall into his trap.  Starkey is calculating but soft as his lover.  Seeing him grapple with his own similarities to Lee only adds to the ennui.

Kuritzkes adapted “Queer” from a novella by William S. Burroughs, and depending on who you ask, Lee is somewhere between a fictionalized version of the author and the author himself.  Fans of Burroughs will be more than satisfied with the treatment put on display here.  I’ll admit that I didn’t know a thing about the Saint Louis native (his family owned the Burroughs Corporation, not the private school).  Yet even as the film dives deeper into the mystic and surreal, my emotions were stirred enough to surrender to the unknown.  This is a story about a sad man past his prime, made all the more pitiable for falling in love one last time.

So often it feels like the movies we devote our time to are made with a timid committee mindset, checking off boxes to be inoffensive and bland in order to reach as wide an audience as possible.  They erase their entire identity, failing to leave an indent in our memories or hearts.  Guadagnino and Kuritzkes are completely antithetical to this notion.  If the details in “Queer” hide themselves to some, there’s no denying the respect that the film has for its subject, story and viewers.  For all the joy it brings, love can be messy, paradoxical, confusing and heartbreaking.  Then again, who among us isn’t?

“Queer” opens in theaters Friday, December 13, 2024.