“Queer” full trailer

"I want to talk to you without speaking" is the new "Call me by your name."

Lesley Manville stuns with her radiant new look!

R2 Can't knock her variety.

New York Times review.

The most unconventional thing about the Lee in Guadagnino’s version of “Queer” is that he’s played by Craig, who, of course, is famous as the most recent James Bond. It’s understandable that Craig would seek out roles that put distance between him and Bond, a glossy cartoon of masculinity. It’s both startling and funny when, early in “Queer,” Lee enthusiastically claps a hand on the naked butt of an unnamed guy (Omar Apollo), a moment that Guadagnino presents in close-up so that the backside all but fills the screen, becoming a monumental landscape of desire. Craig isn’t just committing to this role; he is also throttling his Bond.

But why?

Oh.

Wake me when it's over.

This is one of most boring and pretentious I have seen for years. Except for the sound track that tries to put some life in this otherwise contrived and obsolete story of an old gay men going through his depressing quest for a meaning to his life. Extremely slow paced, pseudo intellectual dialogs, caricatural depiction of gays in the 50's, the film appears like wanting to show how lost gay men were in these years.

The film can be seen as the trash version of the famous Luchino Visconti's masterpiece Death in Venice. It could have been called Death in Mexico .

R9 that's an interesting comparison. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but it strikes me as an odd project, deeply infatuated with its own artifice. From what I understand, it had a $50 million budget, largely due to recreating Mexico on the Cinecittà lot in Rome. If the director had wanted to genuinely explore the humanistic journey of the character’s quest for self-discovery, it could have been shot on location in Mexico for a fraction of the cost, like Y Tu Mamá También. Instead, this feels like a postmodern exercise in metatextual decadence—a reflection of Hollywood’s obsession with stardom.

Its existence seems to hinge on the fact that a very famous actor chose this project, making it automatically deemed worthy of attention. You’re not watching the story of an aging gay man; you’re watching Daniel Craig play a gay man, presumably to secure an award. At least Call Me By Your Name (which I didn’t like) was made in service of its story. Here, I see a vanity project.

The use of miniatures and the decision to film entirely on a backlot only underscore this self-referential approach. It reminds me of One From the Heart, where Francis Ford Coppola rebuilt Las Vegas on soundstages. That movie is now remembered only for its elaborate production choices, not for its story. This film seems to fall into the same trap

Am not sure what, stylistically, director Luca Guadagnino is trying to achieve with this film. The sets are decorated almost exclusively in block colours - dull reds and olive greens, for example - and have that vaguely unrealistic, clean, Technicolour look that made me think the intention is to homage the films of the era in which the film is set. But if that is the case, why the decidedly un-1950s rock- and techno soundtrack?

Daniel Craig (is it my imagination or is he beginning to look like Sid James?) is hamstrung in the lead role by constantly having to declaim nonsense speeches in an accent clearly not his own. Drew Starkey is able to give a subtler performance as the manipulative Eugene, and certainly looks the preppy part. Lesley Manville is unrecognisable as a doctor living in the South American jungle - well done to the make-up team!

This is the kind of film that strikes me as being more about arty style than storytelling substance. It was okay to see once, but I shall not be watching it again.

R9/R11 why are you reposting reviews from IMDB like you wrote them yourself?