14/17
In Mexico City in the 1950s, a 40-year-old American immigrant lives a lonely life in the middle of a small American community. But the arrival of a young student leads the man to finally establish a meaningful relationship with someone. It was Daniel Craig who finally convinced Luca Guadagnino to play Drew Starkey after watching the audition tapes with Guadagnino and saying, “This is a love story.” sit down.” he’s the guy” after seeing Starkey… William Lee: Stay on your ass! Or what’s left of her after four years in the Navy… Starring on The Graham Norton Show: Daniel Craig/Nicola Coughlan/Jesse Eisenberg/Kieran Culkin/Flo (2024). I’ve never seen “Naked Lunch” (1991), but I found myself thinking about it a lot when screening “Queer” at the 2024 London Film Festival: perhaps to be expected, since William S Burroughs provided the source material for both films. In 1950s Mexico, William Lee, an American writer on the wrong side of… forty? Fifty? He spends his days getting drunk, getting laid and having casual sex with other men. One day, muscular, intelligent young man Eugene walks into the bar and Lee is in love. But what does Eugene want? himself? Plus, there’s that telepathic drug to think about… I’m not sure what, stylistically, director Luca Guadagnino is trying to accomplish with this film. The sets are decorated almost exclusively in solid colors—drab reds and olive greens, for example—and have this vaguely unrealistic, stripped-down Technicolor look that led me to believe the intention is to pay homage to the films of the era in which the film was set. is set. But if that’s the case, why the decidedly ’50s rock and techno soundtrack? Daniel Craig (is it my imagination or is he starting to sound like Sid James?) is stuck in the lead role, constantly having to deliver nonsense in an accent that’s clearly not his own. Drew Starkey is able to give a more subtle performance as the manipulative Eugene, and he definitely shows off his preppy side. Lesley Manville is unrecognizable as a doctor living in the South American jungle – kudos to the makeup team! This is the kind of movie that seems to me to be more about the art style than the narrative content. It was good to watch once, but I won’t watch it again.