Drew Starkey in “Queer”… A Star Is Born

OP = Drew Starkey's PR flak.

OP sounds like he's either 16 years old, or he's been doing far too many drugs.

Or as R1 says, he's just a really, really bad flak.

OP is A24’s Oscar campaign consultant.

Or I’m just someone who just watched the film and loved his performance.

OP writes like a 14 year old girl.

[quote] I felt like I was watching the birth of a movie star. He was so ridiculously charming in this film. He doesn’t have any huge scenes or anything like that, his performance is very subtle and nuanced and poignant.

So you watched “the birth of a movie star“ but he doesn’t have any big scenes?

I’m very surprised they make publicists work on holidays. Is there overtime involved?

I'd like Drew better if he'd stop touching his face all the time....it's rather distracting in interviews.

[QUOTE] I'd like Drew better if he'd stop touching his face all the time....it's rather distracting in interviews.

Textbook sign of heroin addiction.

R8 does someone need a big dramatic scene to be good? How old are you? What a ridiculous comment.

He’s in the majority of the film.

R10 it’s a sign of feeling uncomfortable and usually coping mechanisms.

[Quote] It is a very sad and heartbreaking film of crippling loneliness.

I’ll regrettably pass on seeing this film because of this factor. I’m having enough heartbreak, sadness and loneliness in my life as it is. I’m not up to paying for a movie ticket to experience more. I’d love to see it as I love Luca’s movies and Call Me By Your Name is my all-time favorite movie.

Jonathan Bailey can kiss her burgeoning movie star career good-bye. 💋

They’re different type actors and different age groups. They aren’t up for the same type of roles r17

R16 you should give it a watch. It’s a sad film but good. The final act is strange and leaves questions but the book didn’t have an ending at all so it makes sense.

It’s about loneliness and longing for love and companionship. He copes by drinking but eventually starts shooting up and doing cocaine to cope with it all.

He’s his happiest while with Eugene (Starkey) but Eugene is very hot and cold with him. It’s a sad situation

Gay people get all queer over gay movies. Anything splendidly-lurid causes hearts to flutter.

No one here paid attention to Starkey in his eight previous movies.

For R17: They are the same type of melodramatic "artistic" actors going out for the same queer roles in "queer cinema". The only difference between the two is Drew Starkey is young with his career in front of him while Bailey is middle-aged, gray-haired (when she isn't hitting the hair dye) and "making it" way late. People are nauseated with "Wicked", the next "Jurassic" movie is unwanted even by franchise fans and they don't want her back on "Bridgerton".

Are you this argumentative with everyone or is it just me you're after?

R21 they aren’t up for the same roles. Drew isn’t gay and isn’t a theater kid nor singer/dancer. They are very different.

Jonathan Bailey isn’t getting cast as a young object of affection in any movie

Did somebody say Ray Sharkey?

The movie is getting bad reviews. Not good for Drew's career.

Lmao r24. The movie is divisive because of the final act. His performance is getting rave reviews.

Facts.

He was so fucking charming in the movie

He's a cutie

R21 is a Jonathan Bailey PR flak whose final notice emails have been ignored for way too long..

I’m guessing Drew Starkey was cast based on his feet. Luca Guadagnino delivers the gay version of Tarantino level foot performance. He loves a bare male sole. In CMBYN it’s obvious. I just watched challengers and soles were popping up by faces out of no where in scenes. Can someone who has seen it please tell me what he gifts us fans foot-wise in Queer?

R21 read the room. If you counter a sparkle pony stan who is stanning, and showing her PR writing flair (graduate of the Sheboygan Conservatory, in Boilerplate Writing), you'll get clapback.

R29 he was cast because he was the whole package for the role. Including his look, with this being set in the 50s.

You see his feet in two scenes and it’s to show Eugene putting his feet on top of William and rubbing his leg with them while they’re in bed and William is shivering. He is trying to use body heat to warm him a bit. It wasn’t done in a Tarantino way.

It might not be done in a Tarantino way r31. But it’s always done. Always - the rubbing of the bare feet. Not that I am against it. I’m just happy to hear that he delivers again in this film. I think he got the toe sucking iin in his first major film because maybe he thought he might not get another chance. But now that he has an established career, he can take his time discovering unknown foot talent to launch into stardom in more subtle, and not so “shoehorned” in ways into films.

The rubbing of the bare feet because they were in bed. Should he be wearing shoes?

Does he go entirely naked, showing everything?

No. Only Omar Apollo gets completely naked in his 5 minutes of screentime. The two stars do not.

I was fabulous and young and beautiful once. Don't get too attached. It all fades.

I’ve only kept up with Outer Banks for him. He reminds me of this bad boy from high school I was so in love with.

With Starkey you are seeing the rise of a Neurodivergent It Boy.

They come along every two or three years. Most recently, Paul Mescal. Before that, Jacob Elordi. A unique set of qualities come together and they rise astronomically fast.

1. They seem somewhat strange.

2. They appear like a blank canvas in photographs, allowing you to project whatever you want onto them. This is interpreted as star quality. “Sublime emptiness.” Think the Mona Lisa’s smile. By contrast, someone like Jonathan Bailey always appears like himself in photos.

3. They are intensely private which is an antidote to social media oversharers like Glen Powell, giving them a genuine sense of mystery. Again, star quality.

4. They model well. (There is a link between being a good model and neurodivergence, it has to do with dissociation.) They will do editorial after editorial, wearing whatever stupid clothes you put on them. Publicity engenders more publicity, they begin to get magazine covers and ad campaigns.

He will be a major star within a year.

Aspie Troll at R38 is also the compulsive X-Posting Troll.

He has NO “It” boy factor!

Couldn’t Luca have cast another closeted actor to properly match Craig in this movie?

He was magnificent

Look R39

Imposter Syndrome: check

R42 anyone can gain imposter syndrome. Has nothing to do with being neurodivergent.

The interviewer who interviewed him for Dazed said he was so unaware of his talent, so unaware of how handsome he is and so unaware of the fact this performance has Hollywood buzzing. He’s so down to earth and it’s endearing to see.

Anyone can gain imposter syndrome, but it is heavily associated with neurodivergence.

Anyway I didn’t come to the conclusion from the quote, I came to it from watching his Kimmel interview.

He doesn’t seem neurodivergent to me. NAC does and I like that about him.

The neurodivergent troll haunting yet another thread.

There is absolutely nothing about NAC that is neurodivergent.

I don’t think you know what neurodivergent means.

R47 I don’t think you know.

OP, I just left the theater about 30 minutes ago and can’t stop thinking of this film. It was so sad. I agree, Starkey is wonderful as Eugene. This story is as much about him as it is about Lee.

Lee sees Eugene for the first time. He can’t keep his eyes off him. He’s mesmerized and grows infatuated instantly.

R33 silly. My point is there are 90-120 minutes in a film. They are expensive to make. One scene can take three days to shoot. Which means Luca has spent at least a week and a shitload of money shooting male actor’s feet in movies. People lay in bed constantly. In movies. You rarely see their feet, or if you do it’s a split second. When a director lingers for ten minutes on an actor’s foot, most likely they are a foot fetishist. There are three separate scenes in Challengers where Mike Faist’s feet are one screen longer than a minute. And everyone with a foot fetish in here knows exactly what I’m talking about.

Vogue dropped an article on him today

The Omar Apollo penis is a fake penis.

At Venice, Queer as seen as something of a misfire. Starkey was a Netflix actor who was lucky to get a trip to Italy and everyone assumed the movie would be quickly forgotten and Starkey would go back to Outer Banks and whatever spinoff it engenders.

That is not happening.

When the industry comes across someone like Starkey, they see someone who combines two qualities which endears him to them due to their rarity: a seemingly black canvas with an apparent absence of ego (most actors are egocentric hams) who, most importantly, will do everything he is told.

And the industry lets out a collective swoon.

For a film which is not expected to do well commercially, Starkey is receiving an insane amount of publicity. When the Venice reviews came out, I didn’t think he’d make much of a dent; now, I don’t a Best Supporting Actor nomination is out of the question - this clearly is the beginning of a campaign. Remember how Paul Mescal’s Oscar nomination came out of nowhere (no Golden Globe, no SAG. Aftersun like Queer is A24.)

I do expect he will be cast in Guadagnino’s American Psycho (Guadagnino is clearly in love with him and is making the film for him) and like Mescal I do expect he will be given a huge studio blockbuster within a year (Mescal was cast in Gladiator II before most people knew who he as.) Probably sci-fi.

I think he’s currently filming a movie.

Yes, he was a delight in this film. A very quiet but effective performance.

Does he get naked?

Yes.

Good

In OP"s photo he bears a striking resemblance to Guy Pearce in L.A. Confidential.

Interestingly if he is nominated for BSA he would most likely lose to Pearce who is expected to win for The Brutalist.

If he were to get into BSA it would be an impressive feat for A24 (Guy Pearce and Yura Borisov for Anora are expected to be nominated.)

Queer is gonna get mostly ignored at the Oscars

Dear Drew Starkey’s mother at R55, you’re delirious.

Queer is going to get completely ignored at the Oscars, even Daniel Craig’s hope of getting the 5th Best Actor slot is looking more likely to go to Jesse Eisenberg in A Real Pain, a much loved film that will likely score a Best Picture nomination, Best Supporting Actor for Kieran Culkin and Best Original Screenplay. Queer is so off-putting and has no traction at all. Starkey isn’t even in the conversation for a nomination; the critical response to Starkey’s performance is that, of course, he has potential but the film doesn’t give him anything to do other than be an opaque object of Craig’s affection. Gudagnino has taken Burrough’s spare novel about grief and addiction and turned it into a ludicrous fashion show on a runway of Edward Hopper-inspired sets and made it all about his usual theme of unrequited love with an impenetrable third act that, of course, his Challengers fanboys profess is beautiful and profound but resulted in walkouts at film festivals due to the sheer boredom and incomprehensibility of it. Otherwise, high points include the usual slow-mo entrances and exits (nobody actually has swagger in a Gudagnino film in real time). Burroughs wrote of pederasty not romantic love. Gudagnino would’ve done better to not associate his film at all with Burroughs - which seems to have restricted him and exposed his limitations - and just do the fashionable period thing he wanted to do with some age gap romance. Probably would’ve done better at the box office and would’ve met the small expectations of his fans.

But I agree, Drew Starkey has benefitted the most from this and has come out the best. (Better than even Craig, who the industry wants so badly to honour but not for this. Similarly to Sebastian Stan, he needs to make a film people actually want to see.) However, Starkey needs to get cast in something prestigious ASAP - and not some more Luca Gudagnino shit but a proper A-list director like Nolan or Spielberg. Otherwise, this attention will amount to nothing. And the film he’s making now - with Dan Stevens and a bunch of nobodies is straight to Netflix B-level crap, if it gets distributed at all.

Because yeah, Starkey looks nice if a bit bland, but what he’s failed to do this far is assert much of a personality. He’s nice looking but is still being eclipsed by Luca and Craig - that’s all his interviews are about. Since nobody is actually going to see Queer, without a lifeline from an A-list director, he is very much in danger of being an also-ran, completely forgotten.

The reason you’re seeing him now, briefly, is because of who you’re not seeing: where is Daniel Craig? A24 has nothing to lose with Queer which has still failed to secure any international distribution beyond the UK (which A24 probably included for BAFTA consideration, Craig’s likely only hope outside of a GG nomination for Queer - but given the film’s title, not a dead cert with a British awards body). But it was CAA that negotiated the distribution just days before the world premiere at Venice where they faced a $50M film with one of their star clients finishing the festival without a distribution deal - the A24 imprimatur was set to counter the overall reception but was likely negotiated without any risk to the U.S. distributor. It’s Fremantle Europe that funded the film and they can’t find any distributors and no one wants to buy it. A24 has done little more than provide their logo and what little attention they’ve given it will quickly shift away to The Brutalist in a week or two, which is their real Oscar player. Craig’s only hope now is the very slim possibility of a critics group awarding him Best Actor - maybe National Society of Film Critics? Critics groups will start announcing their selections probably the end of next week. Queer will likely be streaming on VOD within weeks.

Good luck to Starkey, as much as anyone else, but the best thing he could do is book a prestige film project with a mainstream director, not a shallow stylist like Gudagnino.

The odds of Daniel Craig getting an Oscar nomination for Queer are so low, if it doesn’t happen, it probably won’t even be considered a snub.

R64 you haven’t even watched the film. And it shows.

Youre also the person who made a thread about Daniel Craig’s ass and asked if they actually fucked. As if it’s a fucking porno. But we are supposed to take you seriously? 🤣

You’re also the same person on Twitter/X.

R66, you actually bothered to read r64?

R66, you’re insane. I haven’t started any threads and I’m not even on Twitter.

Nice sock puppet at R67. lol

I'm a sock puppet?

We should just call you Lambchop.

R64 a couple of things

A) MARY!

B) you’re showing your age by the fact that you referred to Steven Spielberg as a proper A-list director. Steven Spielberg is a legacy director who has long moved on from the national pulse. Steven Spielberg cast Mike Faist in West Side Story. Mike Faist did not become popular until Luca Guadagnino cast him in Challengers.

C) [quote]Because yeah, Starkey looks nice if a bit bland, but what he’s failed to do this far is assert much of a personality

That was my point. That is why he is being primed for success. Do you remember how fast Josh Hartnett rose? Within one year of The Faculty he got Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbor. By the time those movie came out he was being offered $20 million to star in Superman. Where is this personality you speak of?

Do you know who has a wonderful personality? Taylor Zahkar-Perez. Extremely charismatic offscreen and on social media. Completely ignored by Hollywood after he did Red White and Royal Blue.

This is what the industry WANTS. A complete cypher; an empty vessel who will pose for photo after photo after photo and never reveal anything about himself. It happens over and over again. Robert Pattinson. Chris Pine. Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Starkey will be next.

“We found a hot white guy on the Spectrum. In a few years he’ll break down, become difficult or turn eccentric; but until then he’ll do whatever you tell him.”

HOLLYWOOD:

“We found a hot white guy on the Spectrum. Brunette, but he can pull off blond.”

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN:

I loved him so much after 15 minutes that I had a little crush on him.

“I’m the STAR of the show. I have a ton of personality. Where is my trip to the Venice Film Festival? Why am I featured in Cosmopolitan instead of Vogue? Why isn’t Luca Guadagnino making a film for ME?”

“MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

(see most actors are like this. the actor who isn’t like this is the one that stands out.)

Great points, R71. Thanks for reiterating. I tried to like your post but it wouldn’t let me. I still say, maybe. Doesn’t it seem like they have plans for Jack Lowden…? It’s so competitive and, sadly, I don’t think this run of things with Queer will be enough, alone, to put him over the top.

Yes, Hartnett had The Faculty at the end of 1998 but perhaps more importantly, 6 months later, he was in The Virgin Suicides, that had its world premiere at Cannes in May 1999, which while not a blockbuster by any means was a film that people SAW and everybody in the industry SAW, a film where Sofia Coppola took Josh Hartnett and said to the industry, “This is what you can do with THIS guy.” Then he was cast as one of the romantic leads in Pearl Harbour and continued to work steadily for nearly a decade.

Luca Gudagnino has taken Drew Starkey and said, “He’s perfect for catalog work.” Which is not the same thing. We’ll see.

Riddle me this: If the leads in your film are Drew Starkey and Dan Stevens, which one’s name do you put on the marquee?

Answer: Neither because it wouldn’t make any difference.

Oh, also, Steven Spielberg currently has 5 upcoming projects he’s directing (3 of which are in production) and 43 upcoming projects as a Producer (17 of which are already in production). You only have to type “stev” into IMDb and his profile comes up right at the top.

I’m no fan but he sounds pretty active to me. Any jobbing actor would be thrilled to lead any of these projects.

Drew is still newer. You all keep bringing up The Faculty which was a mainstream commercial film, and before that he had H20 which is what put him on the map.

Drew has yet to be in a commercial mainstream film yet alone a sequel to a classic like H20! This is his first big film and it’s a niche indie. And he’s great in it.

[quote]where Sofia Coppola took Josh Hartnett and said to the industry, “This is what you can do with THIS guy.”

The Virgin Suicides was considered a breakout role for Kirsten Dunst. Hartnett played the obscure object of desire.

Starkey plays the obscure object of desire. It's the same role.

My God, you're dim.

Only Eugene isn’t obscure and the story is as much about him by the end as it is about William.

[quote]Oh, also, Steven Spielberg currently has 5 upcoming projects he’s directing (3 of which are in production)

Jesus Christ you are stupid. Steven Spielberg is always credited with multiple upcoming projects because his ADHD is so bad he agrees to everything and then gets excited about something else and moves on. Steven Spielberg agreed to direct and then passed on films include Big, Rain Man, Cape Fear, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Memoirs of a Geisha, Iron Man, Interstellar, American Sniper, The Trial of the Chicago 7, and Maestro. And those are just the films which eventually got made.

The only film Steven Spielberg is working on is the untitled UFO picture at Universal which may or may not be the ET sequel and stars Josh O'Connor (Spielberg now picking up Guadagnino veterans instead of the other way around.) Spielberg's next movie won't be known until the day he shows up on set to direct it.

Spate us your withering insults, R79.

Hartnett played a TEENAGE HEART THROB in a film that people ACTUALLY SAW and was CULTURAL SIGNIFICANT. Not QUEER BAIT for an OLD MAN that no one is going to see and will only be referred to in the future on a round of Pointless on “films directed by Luca Gudagnino” after somebody else has already guessed Bones and All but the BBC will have to beep it out because Pointless is tea time tellie.

And if Steven Spielberg calls, we’ll let him know you have zero interest in acting alongside ScarJo, Jonny Bailey, Emily Blunt, Colin Firth et al. I really hope you’re not a talent manager, at least not for anybody with any talent.

Also, JOSH O’CONNOR WAS ON THE CROWN FOR WHICH HE WON AN LEAD ACTING EMMY, duh.

Next you’re going to claim Luca Gudagnino made Zendaya a star. If you ever remove your tongue from his arsehole maybe you could tell us what it tastes like!

He’s definitely a Rihanna fan

Guuurl

Is he gay? No straight men will refer to Rihanna as RiRi as well as calling her as the coolest woman.

Where's his nudes?

Yikes! The movie grossed only $188k in its opening weekend. Who keeps financing Luca's flop movies?

R88 it opened in 7 theaters

R86 yeah. A straight celeb would.

New Elle interview

R88 it made $295k over Thanksgiving weekend and only opened in 7 theaters. It did fine.

It actually had a very good per screen average

Well, except that Anora opened on 6 screens in October and had 3.5x the screen average. So, not great.

And I wouidn’t look to the IMDb page for any good news.

R94 Anora is a gay film?

Oh, is this $50M film just for gay people? Good luck with that.

R96 anyone can watch you fucking slow fuck. But gay films don’t make a lot of money in general. Welcome to reality.

This film isn’t expected to make a lot of money

Comparing Anora to a gay film is ridiculous.

R97 that’s the same poster who compared Challengers to Marvel films earlier this year. Zero education. Always just talking.

I compared Challengers to Marvel films? Quote me.

If anything I might’ve stated that only a generation raised on Marvel films would think Challengers was some work of real profundity but that’s about the audience not the films.

I’m fully educated, btw, with a 4-year degree, graduated with honours, attended on scholarship. I just didn’t attend Fan Boy University.

Also R97, nobody makes a $50M film without expecting to make money. What? You think the film industry is a charity? Obviously Craig’s involvement secured the financing. They were cutting up to an hour out of the film in the week before its world premiere in Venice so it’s not like they committed those funds on the basis of the script. Fremantle Europe would’ve thought on the basis of Craig’s name alone, they would recoup their investment (the film was in production a year before Challengers was released). It will make a good episode of Blank Check someday.

Anora - a Sean Baker film - cost $6M to make. The comp is just that they played during the same festival season and have the same platformed release pattern.

He looks like he was spray-painted by Dr Ernest Menville in the pic at OP

R100 actually, yes they do. The film has been projected to not make a lot of money. It’s a gay niche film. An art film. It isn’t a mainstream film. You know nothing about films yet always have the most to say

“Nobody knows anything.”

- William Goldman

Apparently the director’s cut is over three hours.

The reason this film was so expensive probably has to do with the reason it why it was filmed entirely in Rome’s Cinecitta backlot: a combination of complex tax incentives, local corruption and international money-laundering. Why knows, maybe the mob has already gotten back most of the money it put into it through the state.

Actually that’s a great idea for a Bullets Over Broadway/Producers type comedy: the mafia needs to launder money through a film production, so they partner with a flamboyant gay Italian director and a hammy, egotistical international star obsessed with getting an Oscar to produce a vanity project. The Ulla/Olive role will be combined with the Leo Bloom role, in the person of the ingenue cast as the sexpot, an American stud with high-functioning autism who accidentally gets a look at the film’s complex financing structure and realizes the only way the mob will make its money back is if the movie is an expensive flop, so the modest film production now becomes a $50 million, three hour film about gay sex titled “Finocchio”.

Daniel Craig wins the NBR! Good for him!

It would be funny if he somehow became the front runner.

😮‍💨.

Boy is he neurodivergent.

R107 ok? No one cares. At least he acts and works and keeps to himself. Chavez lives on social media. It’s too much.

Into the Night? Was he inspired by the Benny Mardones song? 🤔

Drew is certainly hot, but when paired with Daniel Craig, unfortunately he melts off the screen. It partly has to do with the character Drew plays, who is cold and aloof, but Craig is brilliant in this movie.

As for feet, Drew desperately needed a podiatrist or a pedicure.

His nude scene has already leaked. He has some of the most prominent cum gutters ever displayed onscreen.

R111 where?

Here

Mmm thanks R113

Nice hairy dick!

vid?

R116 greedy guys. A poster up thread led us to believe there was no peen on display

It’s a blink and you’ll miss it scene. It’s literally like 3 seconds

Nice low hangers

New Daniel Craig interview

Nice body

Good review from The Washington Post

I loved this film r122

I just saw it this afternoon. (Jealous, bitches?) I'm afraid I must beg to differ regarding Drew Starkey, and I think the queens gushing over him in the early posts sound like teen girls crushing on the new boy in 7th grade. I've watched all four seasons of "Outer Banks." He has more range on THAT total POS show than in this movie, though as already noted Eugene's intentionally aloof. His physical appeal is obvious, but the movie doesn't show the audience more than that (we're apparently supposed to just "assume" Lee sees something in him, I guess).

What Luca did get right this time – FINALLY – are the sex scenes. I was disappointed that there's only a single scene with them fucking, but Luca got them to do something you REALLY rarely see in film or TV, particularly in the era of "intimacy coordinators": actual, open-mouth, tongue-heavy kissing! THAT was actually the hottest part! Drew was fully believable in terms of attraction to Daniel Craig, but he didn't even bother to modulate the rural North Carolina accent he has IRL and on "Outer Banks." He also displayed very little emotion, though I'll decline on going into that lest the neurodivergent troll makes something stupid of it.

Also, there's a second full-frontal scene early in the movie, but not Starkey, Craig or Omar Apollo. Also, R113, they used a body double for that one scene. (There's a reason it's shot at a distance and only lasts a few seconds, with no close-ups.) Not sure what "cum gutters" we're supposed to be seeing, but if we're talking ACTUAL cum, there was a bunch more of it in "Fellow Travelers." (Here you can see Craig & Starkey wiping off their mouths & hands after blowing each other and Lee being jerked off by Eugene, but no real jizz.)

R104, I'm assuming you haven't seen it, otherwise you'd know that a lot of the film's third act was filmed on location in Sardinia (improbably doubling for northern South America), though Cinecitta was the location for everything set in Mexico. It has a few beach scenes set in South America that definitely weren't faked in a studio.

On whole I thought it was an excellent film – Craig merits an Oscar nom, but probably won't get it – but it's even more depressing than "All of Us Strangers," and that's likely the most depressing gay movie I've seen in the past decade. I haven't read the book, so I admittedly lack its context, but the entire thing is drenched in '50s-era homophobic self-loathing. OTOH I'd also describe "Fellow Travelers" as such, and if you liked that, you'll probably like this as well.

Finally, they're not mentioned in any of the press I've read about it yet, but the movie has two actors who are both better than Drew Starkey, and to such an extent that I didn't even recognize them till the credits! Jason Schwartzman is unrecognizable as a severely overweight Mexico City queen, and Lesley Manville shows up in a role I'll merely describe as "unexpected" (but is also unrecognizable, and unlike Starkey, she smothered her English accent).

Starkey seems like a nice enough guy, but he's not "Chalamet 2.0," plus Craig steals every scene he's in (as one would expect), and I'm not seeing how this'll open any acting doors for him. (If he ends up coming out due to fan pressure, however, that could be another story.)

P.S. One slight weirdness: in the early scene with Omar Apollo, he approaches Lee clearly full-frontal – but apparently a prosthetic, given its size – but also entirely flaccid. Lee starts sucking him off literally five seconds later. Why wouldn't he have had a boner even while walking over to get his dick sucked?

Ummm Eugene was written to be aloof and feel like an alluring ghost who barely even speaks. Drew did his job.

Thanks for the review, r124. It's good to get different opinions.

Just FYI, these are cum gutters. Look best with cum, but it's not required. Just wanted to explain that person's comment.

R124 the people upthread? Most critics have been praising him too.

Mind you, I just searched and there is zero mention of that being a body double. Don’t spread fake news motherfucker.

I liked Starkey in the role a lot. Eugene isn’t meant to be three dimensional. He is a young broke student who moves throughout the story like an alluring ghost. He is depicted as a lovely object that Lee is obsessed with. That’s what you see. The attractive object, a blank vessel. In the end you see and realize Eugene is a person too and see how he really feels without him really saying it.

He was lovely.

There was no body double.

Lesley was utterly unrecognizable, and fantastic...she would be my sleeper choice for an Oscar bid except for the fact that no one saw the film or realized it was her.

This song is absolutely GORGEOUS

Jesus Christ r126 every one on here knows what cum gutters are.

Are you going to explain what a taint is next?

I see cuter guys at Target and he's not very interesting looking. Should have used Mike Faist

Just saw the film and enjoyed it. Loved the costumes and every shot (until that weirdo third act!) looked like a gorgeous Hopper painting. Drew was too geeky for my taste but he’s fine in it Daniel Craig is still hot as fuck. I actually got hard watching their first sex scene together.

Yeah—-I thought Hopper goes Latin😵‍💫👽

I actually think the movie is Luca’s least effective—there’s nothing less cinematic than watching people trip, and all of the care he puts into the Mexico City setup doesn’t pay off. I also think it’s one of his least erotic. Despite Queer’s more graphic sex scenes, it isn’t nearly as sexy as A Bigger Splash, CMBYN, or Challengers.

Drew is a beautiful camera subject but it’s hard to gauge his talent from this. The whole point is that he’s unknowable to Craig’s character, so he can’t project much inner life.

r50 I found a better soundtrack for that scene

R132 all you do is hate on men who are attractive while you watch them from home, where you seem to never leave. You also would trash Nick Chavez on here while kissing his ass on both Twitter and LPSG and now pretend you’re some fan when you would rip him to shreds on here.

BLAAAAAAAAND

Since he was willing to go nude for his art he has my respect

R137 You have me mistaken for another bitch, honey. I cant even understand how to get on X. Bah humbug to you!

R140 you’re pathetic

I like his nipple forward moobs in knit shirts. Very old fashioned and masculine.

^ I like it when guys show off their tits

[quote]I actually think the movie is Luca’s least effective—there’s nothing less cinematic than watching people trip, and all of the care he puts into the Mexico City setup doesn’t pay off.

Afraid I have to agree on this one. Did Mexico City actually have a queer scene back in the '50s? If so, we experienced none of it in this movie, which could've been set in any given Spanish-speaking capital, and it's not without irony that Luca captured the same aesthetic seen earlier this year in "Godzilla Minus One." (Yes, seriously. The difference is that the Godzilla movie, also set in the early '50s, only cost $15 million to make, and that's *including* some impressive VFX. "Queer" OTOH cost $50M but looks closer to $15M.) Mexico City was admittedly far smaller back then, but it still had around four million people living there.

And while ayahuasca might've seemed "exotic" back then, nowadays an ayahuasca retreat is up there with glamping as a "fun girls trip"! 🙄 If you don't believe me, check out the "seven-star ayahuasca retreat" below in Tulum. Also: to what end was Lee so obsessed with it? Or was this part largely left vague or open to interpretation in the novel as well? Lee's rationale after they arrived in Ecuador was, "I just want to sleep," but why on earth would he think a psychedelic could do anything of the sort? (Granted, this was obviously in the early psychedelic era, and I'm assuming people didn't know much about acid then yet, but still.) Or was it basically a heroin-induced delusion, e.g. Lee irrationally focusing on a false hope / lost cause?

Or is Lee's desire to "sleep" intended as a metaphor? (I can see how it could be construed as one for either suicide or what appears to be Lee's fate at the end of the film.) I'm wondering in part because I come from a LONG line of insomniacs, several of whom developed substance abuse issues over it. Mostly booze & pills, in true Neely O'Hara fashion, but still.

Anyway, the third act was decidedly lacking and for this reason: if it's possible to shoot a truly watchable tripping experience, no filmmaker's done so yet, and that list now includes Luca. This was actually way WORSE than many others I've seen, seemingly going on forever.

One last bit: they never really explained what happened with his heroin addiction. He was obviously detoxing on the trip to Ecuador, and a doctor there prescribed him a tiny amount of opium, but what horse was he using the rest of the time?

I loved this scene. It’s their first full convo. Such a beautiful film.

R144 you should stop watching films or stick to Marvel.

R146, cunty much? I'm dissatisfied with "Queer" in part because "All of Us Strangers" was better in nearly every way. Both Daniel Craig & Andrew Scott are obviously accomplished thespians, but comparing Paul Mescal with Drew Starkey is a pale comparison indeed.

But sure, I didn't like it because no one has magical flying iron suits. 🙄

AOUS wasn’t better at all. It was melodramatic schlock. A film that tells its audience everything that is happening. This doesn’t. This one is for intelligent adults.

"Melodramatic schlock"? The fuck?? Also, intelligent adults – in this case, meaning film critics – gave AOUS considerably better reviews on whole, along with six BAFTA noms.

Intelligent adults can tell that the last act of "Queer" is a mess – and if you'd seen it, which you obviously haven't, you'd likely be able to tell which scenes were clearly, and oddly, truncated to reduce its bloated runtime – and the characters routinely act in inexplicable ways that can't be explained away with "he's an addict" or "it's a hallucination."

Intelligent cineastes usually know that a huge runtime owing to a director's obvious excess – hence the reason this movie's budget is $50 million when they could've done it for 1/5th of that amount – is often the sign of a hack, and they also likely remember "Suspiria," one of the worst horror movies in recent memory.

Queer is masterfully done.

R141 Really, who do you think I am, bitch? Have no clue what you're fucking talking about.

^

Great Eating and Listening acting from Drew Starkey, there

R153 the screenplay has him sitting listening to Lee speak. What is the issue?

Thanks R152 Daniel Craig is terrific in that short scene.

Can we get back to Drew's voluptuous rack and nipples, please?

R155 he’s great at r145 too. The way he’s looking at Drew says so much without saying it.

R156, yes please... can we?

looking thinner, here.

Full fleshy experience, here.

The way Luca always speaks of Drew, I feel he fell in love with him while filming.

Yes, well, we know how that turns out.

WWD.

This is why he is going up.

Most actors cannot model. To successfully model you have to be able to disassociate and become a mannequin. Go look at Glen Powell photo shoot videos on YouTube. He always seems like “himself”. The neurodivergent however can completely disassociate and become whatever the photographer/creative director wants him to be. The photos are stunning.

Good photos mean more features and editorials. Suddenly, he is everywhere. Designers want him dressed in their clothes. The best clothes mean he is branded a style icon. He gets seated in the front row of fashion shows. Magazines always print his picture when he shows up on a red carpet.

Up and up and up he goes. And all of this based off a niche film filled with gay sex that won’t do $5 million domestic.

Cannot model for shit. He has to rely on being charismatic and having a personality.

hes only ok as a celebrity model. not a prof model

He's very pretty, but he was pretty underwhelming in this film. To be fair, he doesn't have very much to do. His character is very passive and mostly exists to be gazed at.

R166 didn’t understand the way the role was used. We’ve explained it to you. Yet here you are again.

And the gaze was glorious. He was perfect for the role. The diffidence was in the script, not in his acting ability.

“Underwhelmed”. No. It was an understated performance. Like Harris Dickinson said, it’s a beautiful performance especially because Eugene has almost no dialogue. His expressions are what is used to “speak” throughout the film. And Drew pulled that off.

I thought it was a good film but Starkey doesn't live up to the hype. He's meant to be a cipher, but he's dully aloof through most of it. He's supposed to be an adventurer and taking time off after his military service, but he spends his time playing with a woman who is never really explained to us. He's willing to take up with a broken down character with multiple addictions because he knows he can control the situation, but there isn't much exploration of this. People often give characters more depth when they adapt a a short story to film, esp. one this long but that doesn't happen here with Starkey. It happens a little bit with minor characters. Jason Schwartzman seems to be staking out a good career playing small character roles.

One more thought: Starkey's long chicken legs don't do him any favors.

R170 that is YOUR issue. “Who is never really explained to us”. That is on you. If you need everything explained, that’s a YOU problem.

Bless R170’s heart. I’m glad he has a career outside of his “Film Studies” major at USC.

R171, you seem to be assuming that everyone here who disagrees with you must be the same troll, because your taste is utterly impeccable and anyone who disagrees is OBVIOUSLY wrong – correct? I wrote R144 & R149, but plenty of others share my opinion that Drew's performance was lacking.

I'm sorry you're blinded by sheer lust, but he just ain't all that. Let it go, hon.

R173 you should let it go. You keep coming back to say the same shit.

PS his legs are fine. He’s very white and his body type is the exact body type that was common back then.

What's his arse like?

Seems nice

Ass. Ass!

OP has posted sixty times to his own thread, by my count. That's 1/3 of all the posts.

Every single time someone disagrees with him about Starkey he churlishly calls them childish names.

R178 the insult fits you beautifully. Who has time to count? Certainly not someone with a life.

Stay in your lane.

In fairness to Starkey, the character of Allerton is far more elusive in the book and his interactions with Lee are blatantly transactional. The book also doesn’t take place in a bunch of trendy gastro-pubs loosely inspired by Edward Hopper on a Powell & Pressburger soundstage. The ex-pats are actually quite isolated, desperate and lonely. That might’ve actually given Starkey something to play.

I actually liked this more than I thought I would but it’s still an awkward attempt to reconcile Burroughs’ novel of grief and addiction as an age-gap romance. I preferred Craig in the 2nd part, when he was dealing with his addiction, and liked the film more as it went on. I liked the jungle stuff and was only disappointed with the drug trip because I expected it to go on much longer and could’ve done with more of it. Craig and Manville were great together.

Telltale signs the director is out to sea: the way everything was given equal weight in the first part, just moving the characters from place to place. Guadagnino never lacks for style but had no point of view about the first part which was oddly mired in ‘90s nostalgia. It was the weakest part of the film. He missed the best parts of the novel, Lee’s routines, which is pretty much what Queer is known for (they adhere closely to Naked Lunch). They couldn’t really locate the character in the first part and the addiction should never have been an after thought.

And the way he just didn’t know how to end the film. William S. Burroughs would be rolling in his grave if he saw that sentimental bullshit committed in his name. I was shocked by the end title card that said “William S. Burroughs’ Queer”. It should’ve just said “Luca Guadagnino’s Queer” - I would’ve seen no problem with that. He earned it. I still think he should’ve just done something original inspired by the work because trying to adapt this work seemed to restrict him greatly.

Ultimately, it was like a bag of tricks with Guadagnino straining for effects rather than actually having control of the story. I really liked the dream tableaux in the alley way when the characters all seemed to appear in prison uniforms. I could’ve gone for more of that. Destined to be a curio. I also think if awards bodies were actually watching the film, Lesley Manville would be picking up Supporting Actress nominations. Craig’s nomination depends solely on his popularity with Academy members because I can’t see many of them actually watching much of this film, maybe 30 or 40 minutes or so.

Starkey did great with what he was given. You keep on bringing him up. He didn’t write the fucking script.

He has a nice bush, shaved pubes would have been anachronistic

[quote]R178 the insult fits you beautifully. Who has time to count? Certainly not someone with a life.

Says the person who has wasted so much time he has actually posted more than [bold]sixty[/bold] times in this thread.

[quote]Stay in your lane.

It's absolutely not for you to tell anyone else what to do nor what their lane is. No one is going to listen to you.

R183 you don’t even understand the film. Stay in your lane. Get a job.

R180. Saw a movie that was not made: The book also doesn’t take place in a bunch of trendy gastro-pubs loosely inspired by Edward Hopper on a Powell & Pressburger soundstage. 👈🏼😵‍💫

I agree re Manville.

Copying and reposting my comment from another "Queer" thread on DL that doesn't seem to be too active:

I saw this last night. Most interesting aspects to me were the cinematography (a large part of the movie is set in a coming darkness, twilight world) and the music- Trent Reznor is becoming a fine film composer. I was a little leery of Luca Guadagnino's preciousness when I saw that the movie's production design was featured in this month's World of Interiors magazine, but the Latin deco/midcentury settings weren't too overpowering (something that ruined Tom Ford's movie version of "A Single Man" for me- ugh).

Daniel Craig is a very good actor but I think he is miscast here. They should have chosen someone less physically handsome and commanding (I think they were aware of this by giving him in some scenes a faux combover). I kept thinking that the movie would have been much more interesting if Drew Droege had been in the William Lee role, or someone whose connection to "masculinity" is blurrier. The parts where he starts ladling out his verbal pontifications a la Burroughs don't really ring true.

The last third of the movie after they start traveling is much better than the first part. I think the reason is the script and direction are not really getting or describing completely in a nuanced way the psyche of all gay people living at that time. The wound that both William Lee and Eugene Allerton carry means never being allowed to fully love or be loved with another man because to do so would mean one or both of them are "queer" or less than men. The Eugene Allerton character does a lot of game playing because of this. Maybe this is why Lee's "telepathy" drug is so appealing to him.

I've never read the novel, so I am interested how the movie is the same or different- the ending seems to relate directly to Burroughs himself outside of the book. Does the movie also put in a connection to the murder of Burroughs' wife in the last dream sequence?

R186, the incident with Burroughs’ wife is only referred to in the preface, when it was published in 1985. The novel is sort of unfinished. In the book, they never find the drug and Lee never relates his pursuit of it as anything to do with Allerton, other than accompanying him on the adventure. It’s implied that Allerton grows bored of Lee and bails.

I thought it was kind of tacky of Guadagnino to re-purpose the shooting event as he did with Allerton at the film’s end; it seemed enough that it was already referred to in the party scene earlier.

The book is very different. The ex-pats are a much smaller group amidst a larger local Mexican community and the gay ex-pats are much bitchier and mean - the film only plays at this, but Lee is very much an outsider amongst them. The settings are really hovels, little holes in the wall where you’d expect addicts and drunks to hang out. Craig is kind of miscast but he plays it well. In the book, Allerton is broke, that’s the only reason he submits to Lee at all, and it sort of happens under the cloak of drunkenness. It’s more that he allows Lee to do things to him, I don’t think it’s ever reciprocated. After Lee first had sex with him, he offers to pay to get Allerton’s camera out of hock. On the journey, Allerton is really quite frustrated with Lee’s sexual demands.

A lot of the novel is about how anti-social Lee is, how awkward he is, etc. He’s not the romantic figure Guadagnino tries to make him out to be. There’s a whole bit about how he enjoys pederasty.

I think Guadagnino liked the milieu of the novel, through an early ‘90s lens, when Burroughs was sort of the elder statesman of the counter-culture having appeared in Gus Van Sant’s Drugstore Cowboy, had been championed by Kurt Cobain and Cronenberg made his film version of Naked Lunch, a book that was far more popular then. (Who reads Naked Lunch these days?) He was in Interview magazine all the time. Guadagnino encountered the book as a teenager and obviously romanticised it but it’s not a romantic work at all which, as you note, is why the first part is so awkwardly done. (I didn’t care for A Single Man either, it was just so much window shopping. But I really admired Nocturnal Animals.)

Block & F&F the OP.

Thanks for your response R187. So the book is VERY different from the movie- they never find the jungle wonder drug. Is it actually named as ayahuasca in the novel or is it something fantastical? The way you describe the book it is more Jean Genet than Powell & Pressburger as someone mentioned earlier (I also thought of "The Red Shoes" as I was watching).

You also pointed out another weak area of the film- the waffling Allerton character. It would make more sense dramatically to have him shown as you describe in the novel: more interested in what Lee can offer financially and turning away his attentions coldly and pointing to the power dynamic there.

Interesting that you and I seem to be the only ones who prefer the last chapters of 'Queer" the movie. I will get the novel and compare.

The Allerton in the book sounds more interesting than the one in the film, although it could be played as a bit of a stereotype with the wrong actor. The apartments and hotels seem shabby enough and Lee does seem to be something of an outsider among the other expats (most apparent at The Green Lantern). Perhaps they could have done more to establish the marginality of the expats, esp. the gay ones. In the last few decades, expat life has gotten far easier and less isolated than it would have been in the 50s, when most of these people would have been intentionally unconnected to their places and people of origin. Only some of these people would have been living well on the economy.

Not pretty enough - next.

R190, I think what the film lacks is a sense of the larger Mexico City locale around them. You get more a sense that these people are hiding out there, that there’s a reason why they’re leading this marginalised existence outside of their own country and that they’re merely tolerated and taken advantage of by the locals. They are all outsiders and Lee - by nature, by choice - is on the outside of them. The first thing it should’ve established is his grief, then his addiction to deal with it and then his longing and desire for Allerton, which is really a longing of the flesh, as a substitute for his heroin addiction. It’s not really a longing of the heart, Burroughs is more primal than that.

R192 I didn’t interpret the book like that at all. And I’m almost certain you didn’t read the book, as a copy and paste shows some of what you said is on reddit word for word. ☕️

Sure R293, be a loser.

I’ve read that book at least 4 or 5 times over the decades but you think whatever, well, whatever your small mind is capable of.

Why would anyone copy/paste on a community message board where the whole point is to engage with other people? Where would the satisfaction in that be?

I guess you’re giving away your TROLL secrets. Fuck off, loser.

For R193 ^^

R194 all lies. All of it.

^^ PATHETIC - BLOCK THE TROLL

R197 pathetic is copying and pasting shit from the Internet. Pretending you read it.

[quote]R178 the insult fits you beautifully. Who has time to count? Certainly not someone with a life.

R179 posted this statement after R178 noted that the OP – also presumably R179 – had posted 60+ times in this thread. I'm going to block R179 immediately after posting to test this theory.

Done, and WOW is it unhinged! R167, R168, R169, R171, R172, R174, R176, R177 AND R179 just between R165 & R180 alone!

Seek help, hon. (And be sure to tell someone else when you're back on your meds, considering everyone's blocking your OCD ass.)

Good work (or Beau Travail), R199.

This is quite the statement!

OP is Teafake., going nuts yet again.

Drew has the most beautiful blue eyes.

New photoshoot

^ Did he borrow pants from Chuckles the clown?

I just can't with the Ozempic advertisement pants. JFC.