33/46
References Beau travail (1999)
Line of Events
Lee, who recounts his life in Mexico City among American expat students and bar owners who survive on part-time jobs and GI Bill benefits. He is driven to search for a young man named Allerton, who is based on Adelbert Lewis Marker. IMDb editor Arno Kazarian offers sneak peeks of 12 films he’s showing at the 2024 New York Film Festival, including Anora and the dangerous, oddly erotic Misericordia .. Luca Guadagnino said in an interview that Queer is a project he’s wanted to make since he was 20 . year. QUEER has strong echoes of the same director’s CALL ME BY YOUR NAME.
He is played, superbly, by Daniel Craig
The central character in both films is unequivocally homosexual, while the object of his desire is more difficult to determine. As in the previous film, we are not in America, but we are among Americans. However, while the protagonist in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME was a sexually pulsating adolescent, here our focus is a middle-aged writer addicted to drugs and alcohol. The first part of QUEER involves will they?/won’t they as Craig’s character William Lee longs/lusts about newly minted ex-soldier Eugene Allerton, brilliantly played by Drew Starkey. With excellent support from Jason Schwartzman and Drew Droega, who play the other residents of the local coffee shops and bars, the film maintains a steady pace. The screenplay (Justin Kuritzkes, based on the book by William S.
Burrough) and direction are as safe as expected
But the film kicks into a different gear in the final third, when Lee and Allerton go on a field trip to find a plant that Lee understands could unleash the human capacity for telepathy. This incredible adventure eventually results in meeting a certain Dr. Cotter, who is found deep in the jungle conducting research. Dr. Cotter plays, in an incredible performance, the great Lesley Manville, unrecognizable at first, so complete is her transformation. It’s fascinating that even a good actor like Daniel Craig is unfortunately somewhat diminished by a great actor like Manville in a role that showcases her to her maximum advantage.
She is simply magnificent
She does nothing but her work. Give that woman an Oscar, please. QUEER was made with great care, has many outstanding sequences, and interestingly owes, as Guardagnino himself stated, to the work of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It is a film about a deep desire to make contact, even to the point, with another human being. In this sense, again like the best of Powell and Pressburger, it is extremely romantic. To some, this might seem excessive.
It’s worth seeing
For me, the difference between, say, BLACK NARCISSUS or A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH and this movie is that I walked away just seeing QUEER, not as immersed in it as I was with CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, which I admit is a worse movie. Go see QUEER though. Check out our list of exciting new films from this year’s film festivals, including Venice, TIFF, the New York Film Festival and more.