Queer: A Review

QUEER

Once the word "queer" meant "strange" or "eccentric". Later on, it was seen as a slur against gay men. Now, some gay men have embraced the term to mean either as a source of Pride or a way to describe a more expansive definition to gay. I do not know in what way writer William S. Burroughs meant the word to be taken when his novella Queer was finally published. I can imagine that, after seeing the film, all three definitions of "queer" would fit.  

Queer is divided into three chapters: How Do You Like Mexico?, Traveling Companions and The Botanist in the Jungle, with an Epilogue of Two Years Later. In its story, we see American expatriate writer William Lee (Daniel Craig), who spends his days in Mexico City boozing, shooting up heroin and seeking the company of pretty young boys. On one night, he spies pretty American Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), who may or may not be queer. Lee and Eugene start what can qualify as a friendship with benefits, though Eugene again insists that he is not gay.

Despite the warnings of his friend and fellow gay expat Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman), Lee takes greatly to Eugene and asks him to travel with him to the Amazonian jungle in search of a plant that will give them the power of telepathy, a particular obsession for Lee. After some issues, they arrive to find the mysterious and eccentric Dr. Cotter (Leslie Manville) and her husband. Lee and Eugene partake of the plant, which gives them telepathy and some strange visions of them vomiting their hearts out and weird ballets where they meld into each other. They do part, and Lee dies old and alone, with visions of Eugene Allerton coming to him one last time.

Had Queer opted to not be as faithful to Burroughs' work as I think it is (again, I have not read Queer), I think we might have had a strong dramatic film about lost same-sex love, if a bit eccentric on its visual style. However, once Lee and Allerton go off into the Amazon and have their strange, quiet visions, Queer goes so far off the rails that it never recovers. I saw a couple walk out after Lee and Allerton vomit their literal hearts out. 

They missed the strange naked ballet that Craig and Starkey performed with each other, as oddball a vision that director Luca Guadagnino has given us as I can think of. Guadagnino has taken us through a same-sex May-December romance in Call Me by Your Name, though at least in Queer both of them were of perfectly legal age of consent. I imagine that Guadagnino and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes wanted to stay true to Burroughs' book. That, however, may be the problem.

The film becomes so oddball, so self-important, that it ends up turning most people off. It shifts from an eccentric but interesting drama of a man, lost in his haze of booze and drugs, attempting to find genuine love versus mere sex with a pretty young thing who may be toying with him. It turns into some weird, almost goofy production that delights in its own overt strangeness. One already gives Queer a lot of leeway by its use of contemporary songs for 1950s Mexico (the film begins with Sinead O'Connor's cover of Nirvana's All Apologies and Come as You Are plays when Lee and Allerton first set eyes on each other). Once we get to The Botanist in the Jungle, the film is done, and nothing can bring it back.

I figure that Queer reflects the drugged-out mind of William S. Burroughs and is at least semi-autobiographical. It does not make it any more approachable. On the contrary, it makes it more distant even I figure to a gay audience that might be turned off by how comical the third act becomes.

It is a shame as the fatal Chapter Three kills off whatever good, if a bit odd, goodwill Queer had built up. Daniel Craig, I think, is attempting to build a post-James Bond career by delving into this troubled man, lost in his feeding his vices carnal and chemical. It could have made for an interesting exploration of desire, even as Craig continues to struggle shaking his Foghorn Leghorn accent off whenever playing Americans. It could have been a good performance, but it went off late in the film. Better was Starkey as Allerton, who was not as infected with the strangeness of Queer's narrative and seemed to play someone who was closer to reality.

Two big surprises were Manville and Schwartzman. Both were unrecognizable in their roles, the latter more so under his makeup. They went all in and made for interesting viewing. I cannot say great viewing, but interesting. 

Wandering between esoteric and downright looney, Queer is indeed that.

DECISION: D-