Much like there was a lot of chatter about the sex in Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me By Your Name” seven years ago, there has been a lot of talk about the sex in his new film “Queer” – but for very different reasons.
If you’ll come back with me to 2017, you might remember some discussion about Guadagnino’s decision to turn away from the climactic moment between Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer), moving instead to a shot of the view from Elio’s bedroom window – a decision that some viewers saw as Guadagnino pulling his punches. If you were one of those people, you have no need to worry about that with “Queer.” The love scenes are there in full force, although Guadagnino does intersperse those scenes with multiple shots of window and balcony views – a troll from a director if I’ve ever seen one.
If anything, “Queer,” based on the William S. Burroughs novella of the same name, is the work of a director who seems acutely aware of the way he and his work are perceived – the older, weirder, smellier cousin of something like “Call My By Your Name,” still beautifully rendered but with darkness rearing its ugly head. Repressed desire, desperation for human connection, viscous cycles that repeat themselves again and again – these are all themes that appear in both works. But in “Queer,” Guadagnino approaches them through a more mature, experimental lens. It’s a film that, while sometimes baffling, is endlessly fascinating in its construction, with two perfectly pitched performances at its center.
Read Sammie’s full review on Rough Draft
