20/40
References Beau travail (1999)
Story
Lee, who recounts his life in Mexico among American expat college students and bar owners surviving on part-time jobs and GI Bill benefits. He is forced to pursue a young man named Allerton, who is modeled after Adelbert Lewis Marker. IMDb editor Arno Kazarian offers a quick take on 12 movies to be released in 2024. at the New York Film Festival, including Anora and the dangerous, strangely erotic Misericordia. .. Luca Guadagnino stated in an interview that Queer is a project he wanted to do since he was 20 years old. QUEER has strong echoes of the same director’s CALL ME BYOUR NAME.
to drugs and alcohol
In both films, the main character is unequivocally gay, and the object of his desire is harder to trace. As in the previous film, we are not in America, but we are among Americans. However, while CALL ME BY YOUR NAME had a sexually pulsating teenager as its protagonist, here we focus on a middle-aged writer with an addiction. He is played perfectly by Daniel Craig. The first part of QUEER is about will-they?/won’t-they, as Craig’s character William Lee misses/desires fresh-faced ex-soldier Eugene Allerton, played brilliantly by Drew Starkey. With great Jason Schwartzman and. Drew Droege, who plays other residents of the local cafes and bars, keeps the film moving at a steady pace.
Burrough) and direction are as assured as expected
The writing (Justin Kuritzkes, based on the book by William S. But in the final third, the film kicks into another gear, when Lee and Allerton go on a field trip to find a plant that Lee realizes can unlock the human capacity for telepathy. This unlikely adventure eventually culminates in an encounter with a certain Dr. Kotter, whom they find deep in the jungle conducting research. Dr. Cotter is played in a wonderful performance by the excellent Lesley Manville, unrecognizable at first, such is her complete transformation. It’s fascinating that even a great actor like Daniel Craig is unfortunately somewhat undercut by a great actor like Manville because she has the upper hand.
She is simply amazing
She does nothing but her work. Give this woman an Oscar, please. QUEER is very carefully crafted, has many wonderful sequences and, as Guardagnino himself has said, owes an interesting debt to the work of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. This is a film about a deep desire to connect with another person, even to the point of fusion. In that sense, again, like Powell and Pressburger at their best, it’s very romantic. For some, this may seem like too much. In my opinion, the difference between, say, BLACK Daffodils or A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, and this movie is that I only walked out after seeing QUEER, not being blown away by it because it called me MY NAME.
It’s worth seeing
I admit, there is a lesser film. Go see QUEER though. See the full lineup for the 62nd New York Film Festival this fall.