The desire for connection and finding that with someone else is universal. It doesn’t matter your gender, orientation or age. The new A24 film hitting theaters, Queer, follows William Lee (Daniel Craig), an American expat in Mexico City, a gay man in 1950 who is looking for that ultimate connection with someone for the night or the rest of his life. In between the shorter connections, he can be found at the bars or at the coffee shops watching the connections of others within the gay expat community with jealousy and desire.
When William meets Karl (Daan de Wit), he instantly becomes enamored. And as their friendship blossoms into more, William wants more, but Karl starts to pull away. The push and pull of the relationship, the power dynamics and everything changes from moment to moment, but are ultimately relatable. And while William’s desire to have a relationship is justifiable, he quickly turns into almost a stalker and that creepy ex that a lot of the audience can relate to.
The emotions and the changing dynamics are things that anyone can relate to, it almost feels like that rush of young love. But the moment it changes to desperation is where you start to feel a change in the film. And while not pleasant, it’s not the part of the movie that we have any issue with.
The movie just seems to be going in the path of an older gentleman looking for that connection, jealousy, and lust. It seems to go off the rails in the last third of the movie as the pair goes into the jungle to experience ayahuasca. Sure, they have an undeniable connection in their trip (both figuratively and literally), the movie goes from a romantic thriller to one that you may need a hit of drugs to continue to watch.
I’m sure there’s some artistic reasoning or something from the book that the last third of the movie is trying to emulate, but it completely feels so disconnected from the first part of the movie that it takes you out of the story. The tone, the style, everything changes and it makes you question what could have been if they continued with the original story instead.
Queer is now playing in select theaters.
Overall Rating
About Queer
1950. William Lee, an American expat in Mexico City, spends his days almost entirely alone, except for a few contacts with other members of the small American community. His encounter with Eugene Allerton, an expat former soldier, new to the city, shows him, for the first time, that it might be finally possible to establish an intimate connection with somebody.