41/45
In 1950s Mexico City, a 40-year-old American immigrant lives a solitary life in the middle of a small American community. Daniel Craig was ultimately the one who convinced Luca Guadagnino to play Drew Starkey after watching Guadagnino’s audition tapes and saying “That’s the guy” after seeing Starkey … William Lee: Sit On Your Ass! Or What’s Left of It After Four Years in the Navy… Featured 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 often during the screening of “Queer” at the 2024 London Film Festival: perhaps to be expected, as 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, making out, and having casual sex with other men. One day, the muscular, smart young man Eugene walks into the bar and Lee is smitten. But what does Eugene himself want? Plus, there’s that telepathic drug to think about… I’m not sure what, stylistically, director Luca Guadagnino is trying to achieve with this film. The sets are decorated almost exclusively in block colors – dull red and olive green, for example – and have that vaguely unrealistic, clean, Technicolor look that made me think the intention was to pay homage to the films of the era in which the film is set. But if that’s the case, why is the rock and techno soundtrack, decidedly 1950s? Daniel Craig (is it my imagination or is he starting to sound like Sid James?) is stuck in the lead role, constantly having to declaim nonsense speeches. with an accent that’s clearly not his. Drew Starkey is able to give a more subtle performance as the manipulative Eugene, and he certainly shows his preppy side. Lesley Manville is unrecognizable as the doctor living in the South American jungle – bravo to the makeup team! This is the kind of movie that seems to me to be more about artistic style than storytelling substance. It was okay to see once, but I won’t watch it again.