Daniel Craig could comfortably retire from Hollywood and he would have earned it. After all, he pumped himself up to James Bond proportions for years for our amusement. In retrospect, however, his last 007 outing, No Time to Die, marks less an end than the beginning of a new era. The beginning of a new Craig era. Its prologue is called Knives Out. As private detective Benoit Blanc, the otherwise stoic film agent devours his lines of dialogue as if he had been starving since the first take of Casino Royale.
The third film in the series is already being planned, but before that Craig is ready for his next acting rogue. He plays the lead role in Queer, the new film by Call Me By Your Name and Challengers director Luca GuadagninoQueer was shown to the public at the Venice Film Festival.
Former Bond Daniel Craig develops an obsession with Outer Banks star Drew Starkey
The role of William Lee in Queer is probably – despite Benoit Blanc’s charm – the most exciting in Craig’s career to date. Among the secret agents, killers, detectives and Lara Croft love interests in his filmography, there are not many men like Lee. The drug-addicted author is the alter ego of William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch), who processed his time in Mexico in the 1950s in the unfinished novel Queer.
It is not just the character that offers variety. Craig has played the lead role in only 11 feature films since 2010, most of them franchise films (and Cowboys & Aliens). Queer falls outside this pattern. Moreover, Luca Guadagnino is one of the most interesting directors he has worked with so far.
Together they take us to a Technicolor version of Mexico recreated in the Italian film studio Cinecittà. Equipped with a curtain of sweat-soaked hair and a witty anecdote on his lips, William Lee frequents the bars in his neighborhood to pick up younger men.
Mostly drunk and/or high, he is not a particularly inviting person, but Beneath the shell of bon mots and heroin simmers the longing for more. One evening, his eye falls on Eugene (Drew Starkey from the Netflix hit Outer Banks), a smooth young man who doesn’t fit the pattern of Lee’s one-night stands. Lee develops an obsession with Eugene, although his sexual orientation remains a mystery to him.
After Challengers, Queer is a radical change of direction
Daniel Craig impresses with his vulnerable portrayalwhile Drew Starkey is recommended for great things. After all, it is up to him to portray the personification of longing and at the same time to stand up as an independent character. He succeeds so well that one could also imagine Queer from Eugene’s point of view and occasionally wants to.
In Queer, queer desire is staged in a much more graphic way, without any peaches. There are no real crossings of boundaries in terms of freedom or the choreography of the bodies. The focus is on the emotional connection between the two. This culminates in several really touching, tender scenes between Craig and Starkey, which are among the best that Craig has produced in his long career.
After Challengers, however, Queer marks a radical change in direction and mood. Spontaneity and restlessness are exchanged for a late-night melancholy, tailored to the hero who is looking for a profound relationship in his old age.
The whole thing is embedded in a backdrop that, according to Guadagnino, was inspired by the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Red Shoes). Where Powell & Pressburger draw real magic and horror from fairytale worlds, Queer, however, often gets stuck in its theatrical structures.
The presentation is similar to Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake (without the shock effects), while the rawness of his last films is sorely missed. A little more chaos would have done Queer good. It only starts to sink in little by little in the second half. Then Leslie Manville appears as a hermit-like jungle botanist with a supply of ayahuasca and Guadagnino conjures up a high sequence that distills the longing of a human life into a few minutes.
It’s a good thing James Bond is dead.
At the time of this article, Queer does not yet have a German release date.