TIFF 2024 Review: ‘Queer’ Is An Intoxicating, Mesmeric Look At Love As An Addiction

With the masterful, ravishing Queer, director Luca Guadagnino submerges us in another story of burning, self-lacerating desire. This adaptation of William S. Burroughs’s scorching self-portrait of the same name— first written in the early 1950s and later published in 1985—seeps us into the drug-addled mind of a man who struggles to process the joy of being in love.

It’s not so much a story of unrequited romance but the crushing asynchrony that looms over it—and no amount of charming literary witticisms, furious lovemaking, or deep-jungle ayahuasca trips can dispel the notion. From the hypnotic editing, anachronistic needle drops, and a Lynchian sense of the surreal, Queer finds Guadagnino at his most playful and erratic. He paints an experience that feels as enveloping, rich, and kaleidoscopic as the cindering romance it centers on, crafting frames that swoon along with its characters.

Penned by Challengers’s Justin Kuritzkes, Queer’s intoxicating tale of love and addiction takes us from the dreamy streets of 1940s Mexico City to a beguiling Ecuadorian rainforest. At the center of it all lies William Lee (Daniel Craig), a needy, horny, and incredibly charming American ex-pat who frequents the Mexican capital’s many bars in search of connection— all peculiarly set to the tune of earworms like Nirvana’s “Come as You Are” or New Order’s “Leave Me Alone.”

The decision to implant these tunes while recreating the city in Rome’s Cinecittà studios renders it a lucid mindscape. Something so rich in scope, scale, and texture it could only be conjured from the mind of a lovelorn junkie mulling over the memory of a dream. With strokes both intimate and grand, Guadagnino imagines a city lost in time and mind, a vivid cinematic cousin to the work of Edward Hopper or Alex Coville.

Lee falls hard for the dapper and detached Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), who never explicitly states if he’s gay or straight. That doesn’t stop Lee from pursuing him, sparking opiate and liquor-fuelled exploits that take the two on a rickety, sensual journey through the tattered heart of South America.

Queer pulsates with an overwhelming sense of melancholy and pleasure, abound with the kind of feelings that come with a self-effacing, identity-altering love. Guadagnino’s film is so overpowering and mesmeric that it becomes almost instinctual to fall under its sultry spell. We tap into Lee’s frequency, made to fizzle and disembody from ourselves at the sight of each sumptuously photographed frame, much like Lee does when he shares the company of his dearest Allerton.

In reuniting with Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom—who often lenses the slow, dream-like work of Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul— Guadagnino bathes Queer in a shapeshifting stream of magical realism. Translucent doubles of Lee are a repeating motif, reaching out into the ether to be closer to the oft-stoic Allerton, as if his corporeal form isn’t enough to lift this romance from inevitable doom. Mukdeeprom’s layered, metaphysical approach, in tandem with Marco Costa’s ethereal, entrancing editing, muddles the line between Lee’s body and his lovesick, chemically hooked soul, illuminating a man in such spiritual disarray that fostering a meaningful connection with anyone is virtually impossible.

Yet, it’s in the realms of physical connection where Queer proves to be its most arresting and staggering. Guadagnino stages some of the most graphic sex scenes committed to American film. But they also brim with warmth, beauty, and honesty— the kind where Allerton wiping ejaculate on Lee’s shirt elicits a relatable chuckle among audiences. These intricately staged sequences burn a hole through the screen, leaving what remains dripping with sweat and whimsy. The most affecting sequence includes some stirring intercutting between seaside idyll and furious thrusting, climaxing to the sound of deafening ocean waves. That isn’t to say Queer isn’t full of long, meticulously staged takes, depicting not only intercourse but drug use in a painfully candid, matter-of-fact way, for as illusory as Guadagnino’s film becomes, real emotion and tragedy pervades.

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s infectious, synth-based score underpins all this. Defying categorization, it burrows into the ears and flows into the soul. It’s almost too easy to listen, lulling us into pure hypnosis. We, like Lee, find ourselves trapped in a state of euphoria, slaves to what Burroughs coined “The Algebra of Need.” Like the film it takes place in, it’s dense, stirring work that demands repeat visits and rests firmly among the best of the duo’s prolific discography of scores.

Craig’s brilliant, lived-in performance exudes inner tumult and torment, breathing delirious life into a man who can’t help but eat himself alive. Equal parts funny and tragic, Craig’s Lee is a victim of need, love, and intimacy, condemned to seek but never find. In a wild departure from his tenure as James Bond, Queer offers Craig his finest and meatiest performance. The impossibly handsome Starkey excels as an enigma, so easy to look at but impossible to define. In a star-making turn, Starkey comes to embody the type of rare dream figure we can vividly remember but whose intangibility haunts us. The two leads keep us grounded and committed in surreal moments threatening to jar in the film’s third-act jungle trek. Unrecognizable turns from Jason Schwartzman and Lesley Manville round out the cast with hilarity and oddity.

Queer is part surreal character study, part intoxicating romance, but all Guadagnino. He puts his unique stamp on Burroughs’s deeply personal work, finding that love, not dope, is the most difficult addiction to curb.

Queer screened as part of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and will be released by A24.