Queer (2024) - Daniel Craig takes a bad trip in Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs

Credit: allocine.fr

Daniel Craig is ravenous in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, an adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ novella of the same name – unfinished and unkempt, the notorious author draws on his own experiences being off heroin in an often time strange continuation of his abandoned Junkie, a mirror tale of him ‘on heroin’. Off or on, Lee, semi-autobiographical and portrayed eccentrically by Craig, is a difficult character, all at once exhausting to watch and without shame, pitiful and creepy, sweet and theatrical. “We’re all part of the same whole,” he says drunkenly, “there’s no point in fighting it.” The double meaning of whole/hole does not go unnoticed. A sense of self-loathing emanates from him as, though evidently predatory, people have no qualms taking advantage of his advances or mocking him at the slightest hiccup. But Lee is rarely dissuaded – he is as hooked on drugs as he is on the promise of love, and when one doesn’t provide, there is always the other to return to.

Queer almost plays out as three films, plainly set into chapters (with an epilogue written by Guadagnino to close Burroughs’ unfinished manuscript, reminiscent of a tragedy that actually occurred in the latter’s life). Set in the neo-noir neon-lit glow of 1950s Mexico City, he spends most of his nights trawling bars for younger men, only to lay eyes one night on Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a young GI and American expatriate. The two men begin an affair, not without its complications – Lee is needy and horny, while Allerton keeps a distance, frequently parading around with a woman without much regard for Lee’s feelings. Desperate for attention, Lee proposes a trip to South America to smooth things over, after which the two travel to the jungle, where Lee has been promised a supposedly telepathic drug, yage.

In many ways, Queer feels like a bad trip – long without being so, confusing without much content. It’s a solid effort on Guadagnino’s part to turn Burroughs’ difficult work into a digestible work of art, excellently shot by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom with a picturesque mise-en-scene and strong performances, especially on Craig’s part. There’s a fantastic scene in which Lee scours the dim streets of Mexico City, watching a cock fight and laying eyes on Allerton all at once to Nirvana’s heavy-headed Come As You Are – one of those glorious instances where scene and song effortlessly match. Nevertheless, Burroughs’ voice doesn’t quite come through, mainly because Queer seems to make every effort to “represent” a facet of Lee or Allerton’s personality and sexuality with a meaningless symbol – a lone centipede (Eugene’s repression), a prison dream (Lee’s feelings of incarceration and non-acceptance of himself as a homosexual man in the 1950s) surge and subside without much cause or effect. Some scenes leave a hefty question mark even a piece of absurdist fiction cannot explain – a selection of abominable CGI (Lesley Manville’s guard dog snake), or Jason Schwartzman detailing a sexual encounter in abominable sandals. Timelines feel chopped up, characters’ reactions surprise, melodies swell, all in the wrong ways. It’s as messy as the relationship at the heart of the film.