Making his second collaboration with screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes after this year’s Challengers, Oscar-nominated director of Call Me by Your Name, Luca Guadagnino returns with Queer, a historical romantic drama based on William S. Burroughs’ 1985 novel of the same name. The film starring Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey follows an American expat’s romance with a young student.
Queer had its world premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival. The film also screened earlier this year at the 49th Toronto International Film Festival, the 62nd New York Film Festival, and the 68th BFI London Film Festival.
Also starring in the movie are Jason Schwartzman, Lesley Manville, Henry Zaga, Drew Droege, Ariel Schulman, Omar Apollo, and David Lowery.
Release Date
Directed by Luca Guadagnino, Queer opens in US theaters on November 27, 2024.
Synopsis
1950. William Lee, an American expat in Mexico City, spends his days almost entirely alone, except for a few contacts with other members of the small American community. His encounter with Eugene Allerton, an expat former soldier, new to the city, shows him, for the first time, that it might be finally possible to establish an intimate connection with somebody.
“As a 17-year-old, I knew my sexual identity but was also discovering it. To read a book that was so candid about homoerotic love played a big part. But beyond that, it was Burroughs’ language and imagination,” says Guadagnino in an interview with Variety. “He describes, for example, this idea of the translucent body that projects out of the physical body in search of the body of the loved one. This is an image that had a huge impact on me, and that’s in the film.”
Reviews
Ryan Lattanzio in an IndieWire review gave the film a score of A, writing, “Guadagnino wants not only to expand your consciousness as a moviegoer, but to cut you open and rearrange all the parts of you that see and feel things when you watch a film at all.”
Ema Sasic in a Next Best Picture review gave the film a score of 6/10, writing, “Regardless of where this film ends up, we’ll be talking about it for a long time, especially its dynamic pairing of Craig and Starkey, who capture a love story unlike any other.”
Official Trailer
Watch the official trailer for Queer