Queer
Queer
Lee (Daniel Craig), a solitary American in Mexico City, falls for a beautiful, elusive former soldier (Drew Starkey). Journeying together into the jungle, Lee sees, for the first time, the possibility of an intimate and infinite love.
匚卂尺ㄥ reviewedMarch 5, 2025
I found Queer to be a deeply unsettling and ultimately disappointing exploration of the gay experience. The narrative is grotesque and devoid of the meaningful connection or depth one would hope to see in a story reflecting queer identity. None of the characters are relatable or worth rooting for, and the dynamics between them feel forced and artificial.
Eugene’s involvement in the journey feels coercive rather than consensual. There’s no real emotional connection present, especially when the interactions are drug-induced. This culminates in Eugene’s predictable escape from Lee, underscoring a relationship built on instability and desperation. Lee’s fate—dying alone in a hotel room as an old man who never evolved or found fulfillment—feels tragically stagnant and devoid of hope.
The film’s heavy focus on drugs, particularly ayahuasca, is problematic. Instead of offering any form of enlightenment, the drug themes only reinforce a spiritually immature narrative. The botanist is portrayed as a deranged and haggard figure, isolated and irrational. The fact that someone in such a state, facilitates Lee and Eugene’s ayahuasca experience only further highlights how sad Lee’s efforts for connection are. If the film is making a statement about the futility of using ayahuasca for enlightenment, it succeeds.
Even the setting and events feel tedious and contrived. The meeting at a cockfight is a cliché metaphor, so obvious that it loses any power it might have had. The imagery throughout the film is grotesque for the sake of being grotesque, contributing nothing to a meaningful or hopeful queer narrative. Rather than exploring themes of light, love, or human connection, the film portrays queer men as primal, lonely, and emotionally vacant—a harmful and outdated stereotype.
Additionally, the reference to William S. Burroughs’ real-life tragedy—shooting his wife—casts a shadow over the film’s narrative. It’s a grim reminder of Burroughs’ chaotic personal life, which seeps into the film and further taints its themes. The darkness of this unresolved trauma permeates the film, making it feel more like an exercise in despair than a work of art.
The connection to the occult, which Burroughs admired, adds another layer of unease. Burroughs was a prominent of Chaos magick, which can be dangerous, and the references to the occult imagery as a vehicle for the films poorly lacking themes only add to the film’s nihilism and a sense of spiritual decay.
In the end, Queer offers no redeeming qualities. It fails to represent anything uplifting or insightful about the queer experience. Instead, it delivers a narrative that is bleak, disconnected, and ultimately a disservice to queer storytelling and the occult alike.
***props to the musical scoring and art direction/design. That part was great***