queer review
film by Luca Guadagnino (2024)
Luca Guadagnino’s frequency once again encircles the objects of our obsessions, and while familiar ground for the filmmaker, we are presented with all new gesticulations and rippling fusion.
Review by: Aaron Jones | Filed Under: Film Reviews
March 12, 2025
Set in Mexico in the 50s with music choices that sow seeds of anachronism, Queer sets a visceral path of celluloid, flesh, and vice that stirs with the hallmarks and reverberations of film noir and 70’s character studies that would typically be populated by heterosexual shadows of their former selves seeped in pithy nihilism but instead breathes air into queer romance no matter how askew.
William Lee (Daniel Crag), a queer and aging writer confronted with the limitations of age, is unwilling to confront his own reflection yet painfully aware of its implications as he stumbles through each day in an attempt to distract himself from the tribulations of aging. Here, we receive a film that follows its emotions over narrative while perpetually keeping its key figures distanced just far enough that we feel Wiliam’s longing for Eugene (Drew Starkey), his elusive and aloof white rabbit in the throes of an identity crisis. As his hopes bear fruit, a relationship begins, exhibited through ghostly images of desire and nebulous melancholy, only to be confronted with the brutal, unrequited reality and building momentum of desire that lust does not equate to love.
In what spirals into a degrading and vulnerable physical embodiment of loneliness externalized by Craig, whose quavering alcoholism and threadbare appearance are constantly affected by the lingering and clammy heat, he cannot help but self-deprecatingly allow himself to be compared to the specimen like Starkey as they soon resemble lost ships at sea haphazardly testing fate with a hopeless grandiosity.
Leaving Mexico behind, in hindsight, feels like a jumping-off point from its compact interiors and nocturnal establishments as Queer sheds its urban settings for the Jungles of South America, where William’s just-revealed opioid addiction leads them in search Dr. Cotter (Lesley Manville) and the elusive Yage (Ayahuasca) a psychedelic plant with supposed telepathic properties that Williams hopes is his crystal ball and the key to Eugene’s soul. Cotter, who exudes a feral gaze of isolationism and exposure while in complete control of her facilities, adds to that final push that elevates Queer to an amalgamation stuck in limbo between a reticent queer drama and an unreserved drug-induced absurdity.
Though I would have been content with it succumbing to one extreme or the other, the middle space this film settles in feels perfectly suited for its source material and exuberance, meshing desire with bleary surrealism without reservations in its eroticism without fully going genre-specific and exploring its psychological elements with a more cavalier readiness. Queer excites our senses while extending its reserved intimacy through symbolic ambiguity of a transcending desire that wants to consume mind, body, and soul that at times echoes remnants of Marco Ferreri and Bigas Luna.
Author
Reviewed by Aaron Jones. Based in California, he developed a passion for film from a young age and has since viewed over 10,000 films. His appreciation for the medium led him to film criticism, where he now writes for CinemaWaves, offering analysis of both contemporary releases and timeless classics. In addition to his work here, he has contributed to other publications as well. Feel free to follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.
With the strange disappearance of Laura, two colleagues, her older boyfriend, Rafael, and Ezequiel, learn of their recent discoveries, which may help…
A fading celebrity decides to use a black market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself. The Substance was…
When her young son Minato starts to behave strangely, his mother feels that there is something wrong. Discovering that a teacher is responsible, she storms…
Independent film, often called indie film, is produced outside the major studio system. Its roots can be traced back to the early 20th century, when filmmakers began seeking…
Envisioned on the picturesque coast of Southern California and based on the book of the same title, the collaborative efforts to put Midnight Cowboy on screen resulted…
Emerging in the late 20th century, a film movement known as the Hong Kong New Wave, originating from the bustling neon streets of Hong Kong, while captivating global…