Lee is intrigued by the drugs psychedelic properties and reported ability to make its users telepathic.
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Starkey is a lovely counterpoint to Craigs tanned and sozzled form.
‘Queer’ star Daniel Craig at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.Credit:Alessandra Benedetti - Corbis/Corbis via Getty
Though he sleeps with Lee, its never quite clear if Gene is also queer.
The running joke of his lovers stealing his things is the movies most enjoyable facet.
The images are hollow, amounting only to beautiful pictures and nothing more.
‘Queer’.Courtesy of TIFF
A naked woman with no legs floats, disembodied in space.
A scene later, Lee sees the clay blocks of her feet in the street.
Guadagnino leans into the metaphysical here, echoing themes in Burroughs work.
Drew Starkey and Luca Guadagnino at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival premiere of ‘Queer’.Olivia Wong/Getty
While visually arresting, its never clear what the purpose of these scenes are.
The entire project seems more a realization of Guadagninos artistic pretensions than anything else.
But who is Lee, besides a junkie and a man entrenched in wanting?
He is helpless when it comes to Gene, even if he is also capricious and cruel.
But to what end?
Instead,Queeris inscrutable, often seemingly deliberately so.
Queeris an exercise in cinematic smugness.
Its a shame because it does contain some truly fine performances and compelling imagery.
But much like its central character, it cant get over itself.Grade: C
