Guadagnino’s Queer Alienates its Audience
By Shannon Smith
This fall, fellow Columbia Sophomore, Francesca Carillo, and I excitedly took our seats at the 62nd New York Film Festival to see Luca Guadagnino’s latest film, Queer, which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival just months before. We were expecting a two-hour tragic love story of sexual ambiguity—Guadagnino style—but we discovered that that very ambiguity is what disconnected us from the story.
At the premiere, director Luca Guadagnino, screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes (screenwriter of Guadagnino’s 2024 critically acclaimed Challengers), and lead actors Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey take the stage before the film begins. Guadagnino prefaces the film and soon the audience’s eager clapping peters out as the film’s opening credits (highly reflective of his Oscar-nominated film, Call Me By Your Name) begin. The credits are written in blue-splatter ink, overlaid on rumpled bed sheets' stills, paired with Sinéad O’Connor’s “All Apologies.” When O’Connor sings the line “everyone is gay,” it gets a resounding chuckle from the audience. It looks like it’s going to be an enjoyable two hours.
So why, two hours later, do Francesca and I sit confounded, watch the cursory Q&A, and exit the theater with none of the emotional impact that one expects from a Guadagnino film? After much deliberation, I concluded that we had not seen one movie, but three. And worse, we didn’t feel connected to any of the stories we had watched, but exactly the opposite; we felt alienated.
To begin, Queer shouldn’t be confusing. It’s not an epic sci-fi franchise like Dune (2021) or a multi-faceted historical biopic like Oppenheimer (2023). The plot follows an American expat named Lee (Daniel Craig) living in Mexico City during the 1950s who falls in love with a young American named Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Pretty straightforward, right? Though the plot makes it seem like a love story, by the end, both Francesca and I were left questioning if the movie was even about love at all.
I’ve ascertained that this is because of how the love story was told.
To give Guadagnino credit, the film starts as a wonderful tale of longing. Guadagnino vividly and tenderly portrays Lee’s unrequited feelings for Allerton through double-exposed shots, such as the moment at the theatre when Lee’s overlapping hand figuratively caresses Allerton’s face. Moreover, the music choices in the film are stellar. “Come As You Are” by Nirvana plays when Lee and Allerton first meet, standing around a cock fight (again with the subtlety), and “Leave Me Alone” by New Order when Lee does coke alone in his apartment in a beautiful and sensitive long-take. At this point, Francesca and I were fully immersed in the story and invested in the characters, even when the extent of the relationship was still undefined. However, the second half of the film moves from that of this love (?) story in Mexico to a drug expedition in South America.
This is when the film’s objective moves from the two men’s relationship to trying to find the yage, a drug that Lee believes grants its user telepathic powers. Eventually, the two men find the reclusive Dr. Cotter, who gives them the mysterious substance, which turns out to be ayahuasca. The drug sends the two on a harrowing night filled with striking scenes of body horror-esque dances between the two, resembling that of Guadagnino’s Suspiria (2018). Unfortunately for Lee, it is during this experience that Allerton tells him, despite Lee’s hopes, that he is not queer. The next day, the two part ways. The young man completely disappears from the rest of the film and Lee appears to accept defeat, making no real effort to find the man with whom he was previously infatuated. Personally, I felt cheated out of the great love stories I’m used to in Guadagnino’s films. I got only an idea of what the love between these two could have been, not the real thing.
If this sounds anti-climatic… that’s because it is.
Although the two have touching moments in South America, most of the romantic tension and buildup from the previous act is completely dropped. I believe it has to do with the new environment, as a great deal of Allerton and Lee’s relationship was rooted in the gay community in Mexico City, which added much life and humor to the film (including a great side character played by Jason Schwartzman). The side characters and setting help move along the relationship between our protagonists, and when they are removed from the story, the romance cannot flourish on its own. Instead, it appears unfinished and half-baked, as it never fully got time to develop in the first place. Moreover, jumping from a dreamy Call Me By Your Name-esque romance to an Indiana Jones subplot felt disjointed and hard to digest, as Guadagnino’s way of doing so was through sudden, erratic dream sequences.
In the 1985 book of the same name, author William S. Burroughs describes several dreams that are supposed to result from Lee's drug abuse and conflicted mental state. However, this was not present in the film adaptation, and Guadagnino’s choice not to convey this made parts of the film inaccessible to audiences who hadn’t read the book. The lack of context left viewers struggling to place these dreams meaningfully within the film, as these dream sequences were always about—and seemed to drive—the impulses in Lee’s love life. In my opinion, in each of Lee’s dream sequences, there appeared to be a lustful drive, rather than one borne out of love. Whether he was talking to a half-naked, disembodied woman or shooting Allerton in the head, one got the sense that Lee’s feelings for Allerton were less romantic and more obsessive. In the Q&A after the film, Guadagnino swore that it was quite the contrary. However, his preface of this as a possible issue indicates that this critique was widespread. I believe these confusing elements were present not because of Allerton’s ambiguous feelings towards Lee, but because the characters themselves were not developed enough to stand alone outside of their queer scene in Mexico.
Overall, between the undeveloped love story, the Yage expedition, and the obsessive dreams, none of these subplots came together or stood out. All three felt disconnected, making the emotional crux of the movie ultimately fall flat. Guadagnino was asking his audience to be deeply connected to all three of these plots when there wasn’t enough time or information given to be invested in any one of them. This left viewers feeling alienated—not only plot-wise but emotionally as well. However, to say this movie wasn’t beautifully crafted would be a lie. From the music to the cinematography—even the handpicked suits from luxury designer brand Loewe’s creative director, Jonathan Anderson—Queer has plenty of elements that make for a great film. But sometimes a film just isn’t greater than the sum of its parts, and for all its style and ambition, Queer is more forgettable than it should be for a Guadagnino film.
