Outposter Mhatt continues his highbrow walk through this year’s awards contenders as the season gets underway. Oscar Watcher returns and this time he goes Queer.
Queer
Queer is directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes. It is based on a source novel by William S. Burroughs.
It stars Daniel Craig, Daan De Wit and Jason Schwartzman.
William Lee (Craig) is an American ex-pat living in Mexico City in the 1950s who tries to navigate and validate his homosexuality through tortuous pursuit of the “is he or isn’t he” former soldier Karl Steinberg (de Wit).
Okay, so I assume I lost the majority of you already, so to anyone reading this I will honor your valuable time and attention by keeping it short and easy on the details.
The title says it all; this is a movie about gay men and the semi-open culture in what was a pretty conservative era. Despite the relative freedom to pursue their fancies, the perils of love, lust and inevitable heartbreak prove unavoidable in such a fragile yet competitive community.
William Lee has a reliable ally in Joe Guidry (Schwartzman) who somehow has worse luck with men yet, perhaps admirably and perhaps not, still remains a romantic at heart.
There is full-frontal nudity, several, convincing enough for this viewer, sex acts and a pretty trippy-intimate drug-induced sequence in the jungle to punctuate this otherwise listless portrayal of desire, lust and the fallacy that any of us are entitled to a modicum of genuine, appreciative love regardless of who we are attracted to.
Love is ultimately a selfish game where we all try to put ourselves first yet somehow still, too often, lose.
Overall, Queer is what you expect given the title and doesn’t stray beyond a portrayal of a gay man in desperate pursuit of connection.
It’s a pleasantly pretentiously gay movie and I give Guadagnino and crew a lot of credit for making a beautiful-looking film, effectively mixing elements of surrealism, via some solid model work in tandem with some pretty compelling CGI, into a generally grounded story.
There were a few comparable moments to some of David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick’s more subtle work and I genuinely dig that weird stuff still gets made. The music is an interesting mix of modern (three Nirvana covers) and sounds from the era which subsidize the movie’s emotional core.
Two time Oscar winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross contributed, Vaster Than Empires, sharing writing credits with Burroughs (1914-1997).
I give Daniel Craig credit here for bucking his more masculine image and feel he does the Queer community a service with this role, but I won’t say he’s particularly believable in this. He emotes well, but efforts to add depth to the character using booze and drugs don’t add any valuable dimension.
Also, his American accent is not very smooth, which contributes to his performance feeling a bit stagey.
What You Should or Shouldn’t Watch For:
Best Actor feels like a long shot, but Daniel Craig is getting some attention.
Original Song, Production Design, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography.
Only recommended viewing for award awareness, hardcore Daniel Craig fans, the Queer community at large and anyone who wants to help me figure out if that is a fat suit or all Schwartzman.