A double Luca Guadagnino year is a good year for cinema. Even if it isn’t for me. 2 movies probably means we’re getting the two sides of the director. And since we got really good, pulsating Luca in Challengers earlier this year, I knew Queer was going the Suspiria route. And go it goes, letting Luca embrace all of his weirder indulgent tendencies into the South American jungles.
William Lee (Daniel Craig) is trying hard to live his version of life to the fullest in Mexico in the 1950s. Simple stuff, drinking and partying, but also doing so out and proud, in a time where the US wouldn’t really allow him to be. William becomes smitten with Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), who’s exploring his own feelings in this more open part of the world. William hopes to figure him out and engage in his big life romance while he is still young enough to do so, as forging connections and maybe even telepathy is one of those aspirational goals of his.
Like Suspiria, Luca uses chapters to cram different tones and styles of moviemaking into one bigger story. The most successful part is the first. Like La Cienaga, Guadagnino and Daniel Craig take us into the idle life of an exasperated, love hungry drunk. Queer looks fantastic (and does all the way through), really pouring on the sweat and desperation as William tries to convince Eugene that they are a match. We bounce from club to hotel, to newspaper stand, back to club, and repeat. Along the way, we share fun nights with William, Eugene, and William’s friends including an indistinguishable but fun Jason Schwartzman. Nothing and everything is happening at once, as we look upon open hearted William and how his night is going depending on how much he’s imbibing, scored more subtly by the great Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
But with that idle start, I knew Luca got bored himself and needed to take us all on a trip deeper into South America. The second half of this movie is more like Inherent Vice, transforming that sweaty sameness of the first half into a darker journey into the psyche. The tonal swings get more wild here, jumping from a CGI pratfall of some kind, to a melancholic reflection on a person’s current state of life, back to a really weird over the top comedy. What do all these crazy choices amount to? Not a lot really. I get that’s what Luca Guadagnino is probably going for, but pointless aimless scenes leave the audience with a narrative that’s too loosely connected and goes eventually nowhere it couldn’t have gone while living in part One Mexico. The epilogue doubles down on the story’s point, and only works at all emotionally because of Daniel Craig’s really committed performance, determined to make Queer a film to remember.
Instead it lands somewhere in the swing and miss category of films. But that’s ok. If one Luca film like Queer leads to another Challengers, bring em on! I love a good roller coaster. And in the meantime, I’ll be replacing Craig in this movie with Benoit Blanc, and Lesley Manville’s character here with Mrs. Harris, which I will be submitting to SNL as some sort of 10 to 1 sketch.