Gay drama "Queer" Daniel Craig sheds his Bond image for good
Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey shot long and explicit sex scenes in "Queer".
Image: Frenesy Film Company
Daniel Craig has long since shed the role of James Bond - now he can enjoy acting more again. In the drama "Queer", he plays a gay author.
Image: Frenesy Film Company
Lee (Daniel Craig) falls in love with Gene (Drew Starkey) and the two slowly - and intimately - get to know each other.
Image: Frenesy Film Company
On their adventurous journey, they experience a fever dream with shamans in South America.
Image: Frenesy Film Company
Luca Guadagnino (right) and Daniel Craig wanted to make a movie together 20 years ago.
Image: Frenesy Film Company
Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey shot long and explicit sex scenes in "Queer".
Image: Frenesy Film Company
Daniel Craig has long since shed the role of James Bond - now he can enjoy acting more again. In the drama "Queer", he plays a gay author.
Image: Frenesy Film Company
Lee (Daniel Craig) falls in love with Gene (Drew Starkey) and the two slowly - and intimately - get to know each other.
Image: Frenesy Film Company
On their adventurous journey, they experience a fever dream with shamans in South America.
Image: Frenesy Film Company
Luca Guadagnino (right) and Daniel Craig wanted to make a movie together 20 years ago.
Image: Frenesy Film Company
Italian director Luca Guadagnino once again explores the love affair between two men of different ages. With a formidable Daniel Craig in the lead role, his new gay drama surprisingly develops into an adventurous fever dream.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- In Luca Guadagnino's "Queer", ex-Bond actor Daniel Craig plays a writer who loves to drink and falls in love with a young beau in Mexico.
- The film begins as a conventional love story, but surprises with rather explicit sex scenes and takes a drastic turn into an adventurous fever dream.
- Guadagnino's last film "Challengers" with Zendaya was released in the spring of this year and was about two talented tennis player friends who fall in love with the same woman.
At the press conference for Luca Guadagnino's new film "Queer" in Venice, a journalist asks whether James Bond is allowed to be gay, to which many people in the room clap their hands to their heads.
Guadagnino stylishly avoids the question: He is simply happy that Bond has reliably fulfilled all his missions, while smirking over at Daniel Craig.
The two admire each other - this is clearly noticeable. Especially when Craig mentions that they met around 20 years ago and decided to work together at some point.
The meeting with Gene hits him like a bolt of lightning
Fortunately, the time has now come and this film allows Daniel Craig to finally shed his image as James Bond and prove his great acting talent once again with this challenging role. "Queer" is based on the autobiographical novel of the same name by William S. Burroughs.
About the author: Gianluca Izzo
Gianluca Izzo reports directly from the Venice Film Festival. In recent years, he has regularly attended the renowned festivals in Cannes, Venice and Berlin and worked in the film industry himself for several years. Today he works for blue Entertainment in program planning.
Craig initially embodies the main character Lee as an old, boozing lecher, always smartly dressed in bright colors and a hat. As an American expat, he has settled in Mexico City and is on the lookout for erotic adventures every night.
His encounter with the young, mysterious Gene (Drew Starkey) hits him like a bolt of lightning and changes his life abruptly. He follows Gene almost obsessively to the places he goes until one evening they get to know each other better.
But Lee can't really tell whether Gene feels the same way as he does. After the first physical advances, Lee convinces the young beau to accompany him on an adventurous trip to South America. Lee is in search of the hallucinogenic plant "Yage", which is supposed to give people telepathic abilities.
A movie full of surprises
The movie begins as a simple romantic drama, but surprises right from the start with quite explicit and long sex scenes, which present Daniel Craig in a completely unusual light. Craig's performance is funny and gets better the longer it goes on. He comes across as lively and animated, somewhat reminiscent of his performance in "Knives Out".
With the journey to South America, "Queer" takes a completely unexpected, drastic turn. In search of the hallucinogen, the two central characters end up in the forest with a shaman and experience an adventurous fever dream that even shocks its audience with real horror moments.
However, this is also in keeping with Guadagnino's filmmaking - he has always had a penchant for horror, as his two works "Suspiria" and "Bones and All" prove.
Guadagnino's use of music is also on point. It's brilliant how the first encounter between Lee and Gene is accompanied by Nirvana's "Come as you are" while the two of them stare at each other in slow motion. As always, Guadagnino succeeds in fascinating, surprising and shocking his audience with his latest film "Queer".
"Queer" does not yet have a release date in Swiss cinemas.
