Queer and the infinite solitude: A trip to the heart of desire

SARA MIGUEL is entranced by a beautiful film about male loneliness that plunges into a psychedelic fantasy

In 1950s Mexico, William Lee, a disillusioned American expatriate played by Daniel Craig, has his life turned upside down by the arrival of young Eugene Allerton, a former soldier with whom he forms a complex relationship. As they embark together on a quest for an hallucinogenic plant, William struggles with his feelings and addiction, while Eugene seems to follow without true emotional engagement.

From the first images, Queer establishes a staging where artifice and fantasy reshape a reimagined Mexico, a utopian space devoid of human presence, like an abandoned theatre set. Luca Guadagnino plays with minimalism and extreme stylization: each shot, meticulously framed, surpasses the last in intensity, from a hypnotic introduction to a magnetic final dance scene and an enveloping soundtrack. The cinematography, marked by remarkable precision, relies on bold colours and graphic compositions where the vast space, almost too large for its characters, accentuates their isolation. Few dialogues disturb this sense of emptiness: here, silence speaks as loudly as words, and each movement, each gaze seems laden with an indescribable weight.

Stifling solitude

This Mexico is far from realistic. It’s not the Mexico of the 1950s but rather an idealized, fantasized vision of the director, a deliberately artificial set where artificiality becomes a language in itself. The empty streets and vast spaces imprison the characters in a stifling solitude. Two men wander through a world that exists only for them, a bubble outside of time where loneliness is no longer merely a feeling but a fate. This stripped-down staging, the void stretching in the long shots and the absence of crowds, conveys a deep sense of exclusion and marginalization. Guadagnino doesn’t try to hide his characters' inner confinement: he stages it through space, where every corner seems to testify to an imposed solitude, almost prison-like.

This queer solitude is not just physical; it is existential. It permeates every frame and becomes a message the director seeks to resonate within us, an invitation to feel this muffled suffering, this latent pain, this heavy nostalgia. It confronts us with the isolation imposed on queer people, a solitude that extends beyond the absence of others, infiltrating the body, eating away from within. When exclusion becomes unbearable, it transforms into violence we inflict upon ourselves. The drug scene in the jungle is its most raw expression: a body in decay, consumed by suffering that no one sees but that devours from within. Guadagnino shows us that a solitary life can turn into a prison with no escape, where drug use becomes a refuge.

Yet, amidst this darkness, Guadagnino hints at a note of optimism: in the final images, a flicker of light, a fragile gleam like the hope that, perhaps, this solitude will no longer be an eternal burden.

A fragmented narrative structure and a third act in trance

From the outset, Queer adopts a tripartite structure inevitably leading to destruction, culminating in a psychedelic explosion under ayahuasca. The drug is not just an element of the story; it becomes its engine, a revealer of William Lee’s torments, a character haunted by his obsessions and unable to distinguish reality from fantasy. His quest leads him into the jungle, searching for this substance with supposed telepathic powers, hoping to finally understand the feelings of Eugene Allerton, played by Drew Starkey.

This third act is a dizzying plunge into another dimension, a descent into hell where space-time dissolves under the effect of ayahuasca. Guadagnino orchestrates a true deluge of psychedelic images, where bodies merge and blur, echoing an underlying idea in the film - the difficulty of convincing another that they are part of oneself. This idea is reflected in the sex scenes, in the suffocating intimacy of the apartments, but especially in the relationship where Eugene is ever-present in William’s thoughts. This obsession materializes in a disturbing finale, where self-abandonment takes on an almost mystical dimension.

The last half hour is marked by a feverish crescendo, where nightmarish visions and body horror blur the line between hallucination and reality. This sensory delirium heightens the viewer's sense of disorientation, caught in a spiral of disturbing and hypnotic images. This final, as unexpected as it is destabilizing, resolves nothing. It only exacerbates William’s isolation and inner torment, trapped in a loop where the past repeats itself endlessly.

A queer romance between desire and destruction - love as a devouring obsession

At the heart of Queer lies an imbalanced relationship, marked by emotional dependency bordering on obsession. William Lee, emotionally raw, oscillates between addiction and love, unable to untangle what consumes him most. In contrast, Eugene, a young American navy veteran, remains always at a distance, present but never fully surrendering. This dynamic creates a one-sided, tortured love, where William desperately clings to a man who doesn’t share his emotional intensity. More than mere carnal desire, it’s a quest for total fusion—of bodies, minds, souls.

The film treats this relationship with a rawness more than true eroticism. Despite the age difference between the characters, Guadagnino manages to make it touching, making us hope for an escape for William. Yet, each embrace, each contact in this cramped apartment, each exchanged glance only reinforces the inevitable - William is trapped in a vicious circle where love mingles with suffering. This emotional dependency continually leads him back to drugs and isolation, like a self-imposed sentence. The attraction between William and Eugene is never balanced. It begins as carnal, then toxic, and finally destructive. The omnipresence of touch and intertwined bodies reflects this visceral need to possess the other, to cling to them at all costs, even at the price of one’s own degradation. Guadagnino plays on this tension between desire and rejection, immersing us in the torments of a love that, instead of liberating, further imprisons.

The infinite return - between symbols, suffering, and perpetual solitude

The film fits within an infernal loop where William seems doomed to repeat the same patterns of suffering and wandering. This idea is reinforced by recurring mystical symbols, notably the ouroboros—the serpent biting its own tail, symbolizing eternal recurrence—and the millipede necklace, closely linked to Eugene. These motifs haunt the story, giving the viewer a troubling sense of déjà-vu, as if the story keeps replaying itself in different forms, without any possibility of liberation.

The narrative itself mirrors this circularity. William is caught in a gear where every exit seems to lead him inevitably back to his solitude and distress. He clings desperately to Eugene, but Eugene always slips away, leaving him to sink deeper into his addictions. The sequences where William is frozen in a chair, whether during his withdrawal or moments of disorientation, underscore his helplessness in the face of this infernal cycle.

The use of colors amplifies this sensation of psychological imprisonment. Blue and purple reflect his distress and melancholy, while yellow - though brighter - only evokes a fragile, flickering glimmer of hope. In the final part of the film, after his hallucinatory journey in the Amazon, these hues take on an almost hypnotic quality - streaks of moving colors seem to dance on screen, like glowing embers ready to rekindle a desire thought extinguished. A last burst of illusion before William falls back into his abyss, again and again.

Daniel Craig: A magnetic performance between desire and self-destruction

Daniel Craig’s performance in this role is nothing short of masterful. He portrays a tormented William, oscillating between arrogance and self-loathing, in a performance of rare intensity. From the outset, Craig exudes narcissism and brilliant intelligence, presenting a character who, beneath his confident exterior, harbors deep inner suffering. Gradually, his arrogance gives way to palpable self-disgust, until his body, ravaged by addiction, slowly collapses, transforming into an ambulant shell. Yet, this decaying body retains a strange form of charisma, a dramatic tension that makes the contrast with Eugene’s character even more striking.

Eugene seems pale in comparison to Craig’s magnetic presence. Despite his youth and attractive appearance, he appears almost transparent next to Craig’s brilliance, his character lacking depth and mystery. The imbalance in the relationship between the two men becomes even more apparent, amplified by Craig’s performance, which, through his hypnotic presence, overshadows his partner. While love and desire are at the heart of the film, it is Lee’s suffering that strikes us the most, the way he allows himself to be destroyed by his inner demons.

Craig’s body becomes the very embodiment of decay, but paradoxically, this ruined body remains an object of desire. The nudity of his pain is difficult to watch, yet it becomes all the more poignant and magnetic. A performance that captivates as much as it disturbs, delivered by an actor at the peak of his craft.

Finale letdown?

A beautiful film about male loneliness that doesn't skimp on provocation and pleasure. This hallucinatory journey oscillates between spiritual quest and self-destructive wandering, reinforcing the ambiguity of his desire and isolation. Daniel Craig gives an intense performance as a man torn between addiction and doomed love, trapped in a world where everything eludes him. The film gets off to a promising start, but gradually loses its dramatic intensity as the plot descends into hallucinatory visions. Visually impressive, it lacks emotional impact and depth, despite Guadagnino's excellent direction.

Written by SARA MIGUEL (BA Journalism student, University of Chester, UK)