Queer movie review: Daniel Craig is raw and desperate in Luca Guadagnino’s sweaty, steamy film

When Daniel Craig was cast as James Bond in 2005, the outcry was deafening.

He was too blonde, too short, too, too, too … just not right. He was also not a big star, having mostly done mostly indies or supporting roles in bigger productions.

During his 15-year run as 007 he made other movies, became other characters — the drawly safecracker in heist movie Logan Lucky, journalist Mikael Blomkvist in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lord Asriel in The Golden Compass — but the public perception of Craig was inseparable from the famous super spy.

With the line drawn under Bond (Craig really, really couldn’t care who will next play the character), he’s finally breaking out from the figure who will still be the first line of his obituary.

You could see his performance in Queer as a deliberate strategy to do something so completely different that audiences will stop seeing him as Bond, but you have to remember that Craig has always had more artistic roots. It’s one of the reasons why the British public was so resistant to him in the first place.

Queer is a wonderful showcase for Craig, who’s able to be vulnerable, raw and damaged in a way we haven’t seen in quite some time. It’s an entrancing performance which holds you even when you have no idea what’s going on.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino, Queer is one of the Italian filmmaker’s less accessible films, and veers into full-blown surrealism that will really challenge a casual filmmaker who maybe thought they were going to get a more straight-forward story.

The final act of Queer is puzzling and strange, especially if you’re not familiar with William S. Burroughs’ biography or oeuvre.

An icon of the Beat generation, Burroughs wrote Queer in the 1950s as an expat in Mexico City, where he fled after running into legal problems (drugs and firearms) in his native United States.

Addicted to heroin and amphetamines, he lived a debauched life, engaged in affairs with other men, and one night, his common-law wife, Joan Vollmer was killed after Burroughs shot her in the head, apparently in an accident trying to recreate a William Tell act.

He wrote the semi-autobiographical Queer in the aftermath of Vollmer’s death and the lead character, Lee, is a thinly veiled avatar for himself. The novel wasn’t published for another three decades.

In the film, Lee (Craig) is living something of a bon vivant lifestyle in Mexico City. He spends his days drinking, reading, drinking, picking up men and drinking. In his crumpled linen suit, he is perpetually sweaty and horny, the heat of the town and his desires almost overwhelming.

One day, he meets Allerton (Drew Starkey), a fresh-faced recently discharged American soldier. He becomes obsessed and pursues him across town. The two start a sexual relationship even though one of them is definitely not as into it as the other.

Lee is also occupied with finding “yage”, a plant that is said to give you telepathic abilities if ingested.

That’s when things get really weird, as Guadagnino basically recreates what it’s like to be on an extended ayahuasca trip. That sequence could be metaphorically intoxicating, a captivating, hallucinatory set-piece, or it can be distancing and repellent, and it stretches your patience.

It’s a moody film and when it’s great, it soars. The production design of 1950s Mexico City is not aiming for authenticity so much as a specific slice of how Lee saw it while Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s artful cinematography is very evocative.

Craig’s performance is also laced with desperation and a kind of pitying sadness. Lee is a little pathetic, and not only can everyone see it, he suspects it too.

Craig’s performance is wonderful, perfectly balanced against Starkey’s aloof Allerton.

Queer is a big swing, a curious piece of cinema that invites you to consider the emotional and mental turmoil of a character deserving of empathy. Guadagnino always has a singular vision in his work and while not every element works, you’re always glad he put it out there.

Rating: 3/5

Queer is in cinemas on February 6