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Queer

Farhad Dalal Founder
By-
Farhad Dalal
Rating
4 Star popcorn reviewss

Introduction

Luca Guadagnino is a master of depicting relationships and tapping into the deeper realms of human relationships. As a result, the characters of his films are complex without the expected surface-level treatment that you would associate with characters from other films. There is a searing surge of pain that remains just beneath the surface, while masking on the identity of an everyday life, that it becomes that much more challenging for viewers to dig deeper. There are never easy answers while coaxing the viewers to feel the inherent pain of his characters that tragically unite and separate, all in the arc of time (or the duration of the film). Be it Elio who longs for Oliver who has awakened him sexually from slumber in Call Me By Your Name(2017), or Maren from Bones And All (2022) who has to painfully aide and cope with the passing of Lee at the end, or even a seemingly fun love triangle with the Challengers (2024), wherein Tashi, Art and Patrick have to deal with their own set of insecurities while allowing jealousy and personal preferences to seep into their individual characters. Likewise, the path opted for Luca’s new film Queer is just like its title (when you google Queer, its exact definitely is unusual). On the face of it, Queer may appear to be a fragmented drama of love and identity that never really commits to its theme of romance fully. It is often digressing and seldom on point, forcing you to maintain an odd distance from its characters from an emotionally standpoint early on, only for you to reflect on the journey of what ifs by the end of it. 

Story & Screenplay

Based on a novel by the same name by William Burroughs, There are essentially two characters in focus in Queer – Lee (Daniel Craig) and Gene (Drew Starkey), two seemingly different individuals from the onset. In fact, the two characters are often expressed in the form of two symbols – a snake with its tail in the mouth, and a centipede. Lee is like the former, a character living a life of solitude while occasional picking up men to sleep with (yes, he is a queer) while resuming his life of solitude. One interesting detail about Lee is his age – the late 40s have possibly taken a toll of his relationships wherein he does look for an emotional connect but instead gets none in return. Another reason may also be his American roots in a foreign land, that often makes him an ‘outsider’, despite Lee showcasing himself to be otherwise. Therefore, it hardly comes that he finds himself attracted to Gene, a fellow American in a foreign land, represented by a centipede who is known to keep crawling away without any attachments.

As the drama progresses, you do get to know the emotional distance between Lee and Gene, particularly with respect to the latter who thrives in staying recluse, unlike the former who is supposedly forced in doing so. The beginning of the conflict for Lee is simple – he needs to know whether Gene is a queer like him, in order to gauge the waters and eventually make his first move. Lee in many ways, is a reluctant conversationalist who mostly wishes for an emotional connect over a physical one. In his previous encounters, he doesn’t make the first move (although you see him tempted to), while soon being ghosted after the ‘acts’. It is also not that he doesn’t wish to be friends with males – he has his Man-Friday in the form of Joe (Jason Schwartzma) who often provides relationship advice to Lee, most that he ignores and some that he latches onto. Lee is also insecure in many ways while moderately being jealous even as a woman flocks around Gene, almost reimagining her downfall in a scene.

One of the key ingredients of Queer remains the emotional intimacy between the two protagonists. You do see Lee and Gene being frequently intimate with each other, but the cues for the two individuals are different. Lee wants to be emotionally attached to Gene, who is just okay with being physical, something that prompts the former to invite him for a trip to South America in search of a plant called Yage. The invested sentiment of Lee with respect to the trip is a two fold one – one that allows Gene to be acquainted with him and form an emotional bond, and the other, with respect to the scientific purpose of Yage, that triggers a bout of telepathy, something that Lee wishes to use to his advantage in order to be more expressive. It is almost like a last throw of the dice for Lee who eventually makes his way to the Equadorian Jungle with Gene to try and test the impact of yage.

Some of the most beautiful, and bittersweet moments of the film include the impact of the medicinal plant on the lives of the two characters. They literally vomit (speak) their hearts out while allowing their bodies to merge with each other, in what is an emotionally trippy ride for Lee. Unfortunately, love is a complex emotion, something that Lee gets to know the hard-way, once the effects of the plant dies down. The events are heartfelt particularly given that by this time, you are emotionally attached to the characters, particularly Lee who continues to be in a vacuum of hope while longing for his love. The different shades of love are represented in the final act – one being that of anger, wherein you see Lee imagining himself to shoot Gene in the face before patting him to death. It is clear that Lee continues to remain single till his last breath, while longing for that one moment of love with Gene who has clearly moved on, and nowhere to be seen. To link it to the start, Lee is a snake that represents life and rebirth, and Gene is the centipede that walks away without attachments. It is a searing representation of love that might be niche and fragmented but beautifully allows you room to invest in the drama.

Dialogues, Music & Direction

The dialogues are conversational and often used as a refreshing medium to glue the fragmented narrative (remember it unfolds in chapters). The BGM is beautifully melancholic that doesn’t make the obvious choice of highlighting the underlying emotions. In fact, the notes are similar to the character of Lee, appearing gleefully detached with a tragically holding onto to a sea of sadness brimming beneath the surface, that automatically makes the drama niche and layered. The score is at times pulsating and riveting to appease the tensions of the protagonist while beautifully summing up the different shades of the drama. The cinematography is wonderfully colour coordinated, that adds nicely to the aesthetics of the drama even as the frames add depth. The editing might seem fragmented but it allows an unusual buildup of emotions that you may only realise while looking at the hindsight (and not in the moment), that contributes wonderfully to the drama. Director Luca Guadagnino has had a stellar 2024 with one banger of a film in the form of Challengers, but he delivers another one of those searing pieces of cinema that unfold like broad strokes of a poetry, while gently taking you on an intrinsic tour of its emotions. He definitely did opt for a path that was unconventional, but the approach also was similar to how Lee was feeling throughout the film – that of solitude and forced into detachment while longing for an emotional cling. It was masterful storytelling by a masterful filmmaker in every sense of the word.

Performances

The performances are pretty good by the members of the cast. Lesley Manville as Doctor Cotter has her moments to shine. Jason Schwartzma as Joe is sincere and earnest while being easy going with his character. Drew Starkey as Gene is a complex character that chooses to be emotionally attached probably while dealing with an identity crisis himself. In a scene, you see him telling Lee that he isn’t a queer but a disembodiment, and so he doesn’t see the world as queer in a way that Lee does. It was almost an indicator of his inner turmoil, of either running away from his ‘issue’ (being a queer may have been a sin in the 1950s), or simply not coming to terms with it. And Drew, wonderfully touches upon a plethora of emotions along the way. Daniel Craig probably delivers one of his best performances of his career as Lee – a man fending in life in his solitude till a ray of hope soon transforms into a mirage for him. He needed to internalize his character to the point of being drained with emotions himself, and he manages to pull that off brilliantly. This was an acting masterclass if ever there was one, in a plot that firmly remains character driven and particularly because most of the drama unfolds through Lee’s gaze.

Conclusion

Despite being niche with its narrative, Queer is a poetic distillation of love, longing and everything in between, that makes for a beautifully pondering watch. The drama is Highly Recommended from my end!

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