William Lee (Daniel Craig) is an American ex-pat living in Mexico City. He spends his time indulging in alcohol, heroin and hustlers. One day he spots Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a slim young lad, and becomes obsessed. Where Lee is sweaty and passionate, Allerton is icy and inscrutable. He shares his body but not his thoughts. Lee convinces himself that if they take ayahuasca they’ll communicate telepathically. Then he’ll learn if there’s love behind Allerton’s Mona Lisa smile.

Queer is not a romance. It’s the grim tale of a drowning man. Justin Kuritzkes’s sparse screenplay, adapted from the writings of William S. Burroughs, keeps us at a distance. The sad-eyed Craig has a large bag of actor tricks. Yet his hopeless protagonist is stuck in one gear. Starkey’s handsome twink is more symbol than man. Jason Schwartzman, Drew Droege and Lesley Manville provide some levity as Lee’s eccentric confidantes. But they can’t dispel his gloom. Lee tells Allerton that queers need not be lonely and miserable. Then spends the next two hours being lonely and miserable.

Director Luca Guadagnino fills a sunlit world with beautiful men. The first hour is lovely to look at. He struggles in the second half as Lee dives into drug induced fantasies. CGI visions of snakes, bugs and melting bodies feel cliched. They offer no insight into the thinly drawn characters.

In the end Guadagnino’s sad gay period drama left me cold. It’s a shame as the cast was exciting on paper. Perhaps Burroughs fans will take more from it. This may be the best adaptation of the source novel we could have gotten. I saw parallels to Andrew Haigh’s 2023 All of Us Strangers, a film I love. Haigh explored queer loneliness with compassion. Queer has little to offer. It looks at Lee the way Allerton does; like a specimen in a jar.

You can find more of my reviews at The Avocado,  Letterboxd and Serializd. My podcast, Rainbow Colored Glasses, can be found here.