In 1950s Mexico City, an American ex-pat in his late forties leads a solitary life amidst a small American community. However, the arrival of a young student stirs the man into finally establishing a meaningful connection with someone.

The second movie of Luca Guadagnino’s 2024 after the tennis love triangle movie ‘Challengers’ is ‘Queer’, an adaptation of a 1985 William S. Burroughs novella. It stars Daniel Craig in the central role of William Lee, an American expatriate who lives a passive lifestyle in 1950s Mexico City, where he drinks a lot and engages in sex with various young men. One evening, he spots an attractive young GI called Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) and he becomes besotted with him, attempting to win his affections even as Eugene’s approach seems ambivalent, at least initially. ‘Queer’ follows this attempted connection as the two men spend time together in both Mexico City and across South America over this time period.

The first thing I will say for ‘Queer’ is that I wanted to visit every place and every bar in the movie, and I can’t think of many movies that have so effectively immersed me within a specific time and place. It is gorgeous to look at and there is something quite intoxicating about Lee’s destructive, but at times fun, looking lifestyle – who wouldn’t have wanted to drink themselves stupid in 1950s Mexico?! I also really liked that the plot is all over the place, clearly based on a novel and doesn’t follow the typical narrative conventions of most movies. It has dream sequences, touches of surrealism and Guadagnino purposely blurs the lines between reality and fiction, and it’s all the better for it.

Daniel Craig is brilliant, as is Drew Starkey, and they make for a compelling duo to follow, with Craig’s lustful older man loosely searching and not really finding a purpose in life. Key support comes from a barely recognisable Lesley Manville and Jason Schwartzman, who as a crazed doctor and Lee’s friend respectively, add colour to proceedings (as if it needed it!). It has a killer soundtrack, as most Guadagnino movies do, and it is just quite effortlessly cool to immerse yourself in as a viewer. I will say it is probably a bit long and the plot does start to meander in the final stretch, but I really enjoyed ‘Queer’ and it is another strong entry in Luca Guadagnino’s impressive resume.

Rating: 4/5

Directed By: Luca Guadagnino

Starring: Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman, Henry Zaga, Omar Apollo, Drew Droege, Ariel Schulman and David Lowery

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt24176060/