On paper, it may seem like director Luca Guadagnino’s two 2024 releases are entirely different. The colossal hit “Challengers” was a hard pivot from the Italian director’s typical style, teeming with a bold, pulsating sexiness far more overt than most of his other efforts. The film was also Guadagnino’s most accessible yet, capturing a sex-starved zeitgeist looking to latch on to something truly horny amid modern sex scene discourse. But after making a hard tilt toward the mainstream just seven months ago, Guadagnino’s latest film “Queer” pivots back toward his softer, narratively opaque roots. And though the two movies look like diametrical opposites, they share a pair of undeniable throughlines: the aching, all-consuming feeling of desire and the remarkable actors chosen to depict it.
“Queer,” adapted from William S. Burroughs’ 1985 novella, dials down the sheer athletic intensity of its predecessor in Guadagnino’s filmography. Still, the salty scent of sweat and the weight of unspoken yearning lingers in the atmosphere, waiting for a wholly committed Daniel Craig to saunter into the frame in a white linen suit to pick up where “Challengers” left off. In “Queer,” Craig plays William Lee, an addict in 1950s Mexico City whose dependence on drugs and alcohol is as torturous as his penchant for gay sex — though he’s better at concealing the former than the latter. Like any functioning addict, Lee is one push from falling off the edge where he has so carefully perched himself. When he meets the strapping young army vet Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), Lee is thrust into free fall, stricken by compulsion and fixation unlike anything he’s experienced before.
