Luca Guadagnino
Queer

Guadagnino is not a storyteller. Guadagnino makes you feel things.

The thrill of love, the turbulence of sex, the impulses of the flesh. And in his personal vision of Burroughs' novel, for a good hour, he manages to do it at his best. The adventures of the "queer" William Lee (an extraordinary Daniel Craig) are feverish, shameless, hypnotic. An unrelenting spiral, almost a curse, an endless quest for pleasure — of the body but also of the soul.

As long as we stay in Mexico City, Guadagnino is in a state of grace. Every night at the bar, the sordid motels, the tequila bottles, the penises, the butts, the Camels, the windows that seem to whisper. It's here that his cinema lives: in the minute, repetitive, sensual description. It's the realm of the skin, not of the plot.

But then we head to South America, and the unity of time and space is lost. The narration frays, the visual hypnosis breaks. Guadagnino, when he tries to tell a story "normally," shows his limits. He is not an author in the classical sense of the term. And Justin Kuritzkes, born in '90, already screenwriter of "Challengers" (with questionable outcomes), at least restrains himself here, but certainly doesn't shine.

The real problems are with writing: the themes remain fragmented, the characters elude, and the obsessions are never really dug into. The mature man relentlessly woos the young man, and the latter responds with cold detachment. But why? Why so much distance, so much haughtiness? The film doesn't say. Or it doesn't care to say.

Even the psychedelic visions do not work fully, and the second half drags. The 137 minutes are felt entirely because they chase irrelevant details without ever seeking a broader perspective. And so we do not grow passionate: the journey remains inconclusive, as if suspended.

The most powerful scene? Sodomy.

There Guadagnino is pure cinema: the bodies uniting, showing at the same time desire, sentiment, and perversion. It's a moment of the highest order, justifying the entire film. It's a shame that much of the rest seems to spin in circles. Because the director, it is clear, looks elsewhere. What interests him are not the characters, nor their stories. But only the suggestion they can evoke.