if you know Daniel Craig Only as James Bond, “Queer” is liable to throw you for a loop. In this new film by Luca Guadagnino, which premiered Venice Film Festival On Tuesday, Craig, 56, plays a drug addict whose sexual escapades and heroin use are filmed with realistic clarity.
But if you knew Craig before he was pressed into Her Majesty’s Secret Service — when he was still an up-and-coming young actor appearing in risqué, sexually explicit films like “Love Is the Devil” and “The Mother” — you might have guessed Maybe “Queer” is more in line with his sensibilities than some of the big studio fare he’s made recently. At the film’s Venice news conference, he all but confirmed the hunk.
“If I wasn’t in a movie and saw this movie, I’d want to be in it,” Craig told reporters. “That’s the kind of film I want to see, I want to make, I want to be out there. They are challenging but hopefully incredibly accessible.
Adapted from the novel of the same name by William S. Burroughs“Queer” follows Lee (Craig), an American expat in Mexico City. Lee spends most of her waking hours pursuing some kind of high, whether that means drinking too much at a dive bar, going after any handsome man who crosses her path, or shooting up heroin while alone in her apartment.
In his linen suits, Lee goes through life like a well-dressed zombie until he meets Allerton (Drew Starkey), an attractive young drifter whose sexuality seems to take hold. Does he like Lee or is he just liked? Allerton says very little, which only confuses Lee more. As the old man’s romantic infatuation grows, he tempts Allerton to help him find a drug that can supposedly induce a form of telepathy; If it can be scored, perhaps he will learn what the object of his affection is really thinking.
Written in the early 1950s but not published until 1985, Burroughs’ novel is slight and obscure. Guadagnino takes a very different approach to the source material, constructing lavish sets (these were erected at Cinecitta Studios in Rome, Mexico City) and imbuing the story with an overarching romanticism.
“Daniel, in our first zoom, was adamant that this was going to be a love story bigger than empires,” Guadagnino said at the news conference. (A24 has picked up the film for distribution.)
However, Lee’s sexual escapades have rarely been given short shrift. Before he joined Allerton, Lee had two encounters with the hustler played by the singer. Omar ApolloWhose film debut is mostly spent in nude. During those scenes and many more explicit moments of same-sex intimacy, the man sitting next to me sighed in annoyance and muttered, “Oh, God.” Then, when the end credits rolled, he shouted angrily like a ticked-off French critic at Cannes.
Craig said he was upset by the apparent encounters. “There is nothing intimate about filming a sex scene on a movie set,” he said. “We wanted to make it as touching and real and natural as possible. We kind of had a laugh, we tried to make it fun.”
Although Guadagnino has directed films such as “Call Me by Your Name” and “Challengers,” which are shot with erotica, he admits that in some ways, he’s an unlikely interpreter of all this sexually forward material.
“I can count on two hands the lovers I’ve had in my life,” he said. Lee’s other addictions also hold little appeal for him: “I’m a gentleman who goes to bed very early, never taken drugs in my life, never smoked a cigarette.”
Still, when it comes to his art, Guadagnino is never afraid to take risks. The director makes films that push a little further than most, and if that charge leads Guadagnino and Craig to portray people working on the margins of society, that’s a space they’re happy to explore.
“I like the idea of looking at people and not judging them, making sure that even the worst person is someone you identify with,” he said.
Craig added: “If I’m writing a piece and trying to tick off the things I want to do, this will do it.”
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