Queer

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig

Luca Guadagnino's Queer is a relatively faithful, yet unsatisfying adaptation of the William Burroughs' novella. The film follows the arc of Burroughs' alter ego Bill Lee's relationship with a younger and less besotted American emigre. Daniel Craig plays Lee and he almost makes the film watchable. Whether flying high on heroin or suffering from withdrawal, Craig deftly illustrates the ups and downs of a man who is hooked both on smack and the object of his desire. That said, Craig looks too solid and healthy to be a junkie. Drew Starkey, as the object of Lee's desire, fails to make a purposefully underwritten character come alive. He is all object with no subject or back story. The Mexico City of the first part of the film is a ridiculously idealized Interzone awash in primary colors. What is lacking is the seediness and squalor that one finds in Burroughs' prose. I did like the CGI backgrounds that Guadagnino employs, giving the film the look of a 1950s diorama, because it ties into Burroughs interest in hallucinogens and magick. 

After a torpid beginning, I did find that the picture picked up a little when Lee and his companion travel to Ecuador in order to search for ayahuasca. Lesley Manville has a nice turn as a batty botanist who guides the boys on a ayahuasca trip. However, the trip culminates in a ridiculous naked pas de deux between Craig and Starkey that is as risible as the dance numbers in Guadagnino's Suspiria. The main problem with Queer is that Guadagnino seems to want to turn the book into a Queer Romance for today. However, Burroughs may be the least Romantic writer of the previous century. Thus, the project seems watered down and defanged. It all looks too pretty. The feeling of degradation that Lee experiences because of the relationship is barely touched on. The film hints at the end about Starkey's character being a CIA agent, but this feels like a tacked on attempt to bring in another of Burroughs' major themes: paranoia. All in all, Queer is a very misguided film that is a superficial approximation of the Burroughs' prose.