By Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” premiered at the Venice Film Festival last night to a 12-minute standing ovation.
Daniel Craig and his co-stars Drew Starkey and Lesley Manville were on hand with the director, everyone very happy with the film’s reaction it seems.
At one point even fellow filmmaker Pedo Almodovar got in on the action, hugging Guadagnino and Craig during the applause. The film’s press conference was also a bit of a hoot from the sounds of it.
Asked if there could ever be a gay James Bond, Guadagnino chimed in with the response (with Craig wryly smiling while listening on):
“Guys, let’s be adults in the room for a second. There is no way around the fact that nobody could ever know James Bond’s desires. Period. The important thing is that he does his missions properly.”
Whereas some actors loathe scenes of on screen intimacy, Craig says there wasn’t much of an issue here – he and co-star Starkey “had a laugh” and “tried to make it fun” while rendering the scene on screen “as touching and as real and as natural as we possibly could”.
Set in 1940s Mexico City, the film follows Lee (Craig) who, after fleeing from a drug bust in New Orleans, wanders around the city’s clubs and becomes infatuated with discharged American Navy serviceman Allerton (Starkey).
The response has gone down well. On Rotten Tomatoes it sits at a 79% (7.2/10) from 14 reviews – solid, but nothing outstanding. However the reviews paint a fascinating picture with some loving it, some though it bland, and all calling it various colorful metaphors. Here’s a sampling of reviews:
“By turns sexy, heartbreaking, and extraordinarily trippy, the film mutates in front of our eyes in its exploration of this strange, strange thing called love… Queer is a triumph.” – Zhuo-Ning Su, Awards Daily
“Guadagnino wants not only to expand your consciousness as a moviegoer, but to cut you open and rearrange all the parts of you that see and feel things when you watch a film at all.” – Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire
“Featuring the most surreal imagery of his career, Queer is as if Luca Guadagnino combined the sensibilities of his last four movies into one.” – Alexander Harrison, Screen Rant
“Craig is so dominant that sometimes it seems that Gene is almost not worthy of him. Craig is strangely magnificent.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“Regardless of where this film ends up, we’ll be talking about it for a long time, especially its dynamic pairing of Craig and Starkey, who capture a love story unlike any other.” – Ema Sasic, Next Best Picture
“Queer is meant to be prickly, withholding, enigmatic. To want anything more from it might simply be repeating Lee’s mistake, grasping for something that could never be ours.” – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
“One of Guadagnino’s most beguilingly intimate works to date – an imperfect, arresting voyage into discomfort and euphoria.” – Rory Doherty, Flicks
“For a Burroughs adaptation, it has all the provocation but none of the haunting power that Naked Lunch still holds, almost 35 years later.” – Fionnuala Halligan, Screen International
“It’s an awkward combination of fidelity to historical research and wish fulfillment that doesn’t serve anyone except its creator.” – Alison Willmore, Vulture
Timed with the launch is the film’s first clip which has been released and can be seen by clicking here. “Queer” will be released in cinemas by A24 but hasn’t set a release date as yet.
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