By Sandra Hall
QUEER ★★★
(MA) 137 minutes
Many well-known actors have been acclaimed for performances that require them to abandon their vanity and look as unappealing as they can. Daniel Craig joins their ranks in Luca Guadagnino’s film of the William S. Burroughs novella Queer. It’s as if he’s reminding you that he proved himself as a gifted, versatile – and occasionally unglamorous – actor long before 007 called on his services.
He’s cast as William Lee, a Burroughs alter ego and heroin addict, who’s distracting himself from writing by hanging out every night in bars favoured by other feckless American expatriates living in Mexico City in the 1950s.
Daniel Craig (left) plays William Lee, a Burroughs alter ego and heroin addict.Credit: Yannis Drakoulidis
He seems to be enjoying himself, but this way of life does bring frustrations, the main one being his failure to attract the much younger men who excite his desires. The reasons for this are not hard to work out. His grubby linen suit and predatory air are enough of a turnoff without the gun he wears on his hip.
It’s loaded, but it’s also an unfortunate reminder of the elephant lurking in the corner of the frame – Burroughs’ stay in Mexico is forever associated with the killing of his wife, Joan. They were either drunk or stoned when he asked her to balance a glass on her head so that he could demonstrate his marksmanship by shooting it off. Instead, he shot her in the temple. The tragedy is not mentioned here, except for one indirect reference. Yet, it hovers over everything.
At the centre of the story is Lee’s affair with Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), based on Burroughs’ lover Lewis Marker. He is young and so clean-cut he seems to shine with health and happiness in contrast to Lee’s state of nervy disorder. Nonetheless, after a lot of wheedling, Lee manages to get him into bed, and a series of sweaty sex sequences result.
For a while, it looks as if this decidedly one-sided relationship is going to dominate the rest of the film as Lee humiliates himself with exaggerated expressions of his adoration, while Allerton delights in playing the tease.
But the mood changes when Lee abruptly decides he’s taking off to South America in search of ayahuasca, a plant known for its hallucinogenic properties. Allerton is bribed to go with him, and eventually, deep in the Amazon, they find the plant and Lesley Manville as a deranged doctor who’s been sampling too much of the stuff. Equipped with blackened teeth, a head of wild grey hair and a maniacal laugh, she wastes no time in tipping the whole film over into farce.
Craig, however, is mesmerising, drawing a complex portrait of a needy obsessive who’s become a victim of his instincts and impulses without any idea of what he really wants to do or where he wants to go. Every passing doubt is written on his face. There is only one flaw. He can’t make you care.
Queer is released in cinemas on February 6.
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