Live, die and let love

Luca Guadagnino’s Queer is a wisp of smoke curling in the humid air, a film that aches with forbidden longing.

- RAJA SEN

Luca Guadagnino's Queer is a wisp of smoke curling in the humid air, a film that aches with forbidden longing. Streaming on MUBI, the film is a languid dream, saturated with the yearning of a man who dares to desire—yet barely allows himself to reach. This is Daniel Craig, his face weathered yet vulnerably luminous, his performance the hush of a confession.

As Lee, Craig is hesitant but hopeful, out of place in his own skin, his body moving through the world as though apologising for its own needs. His gaze is heartbreakingly adolescent—furtive, searching, afraid of being caught yet desperate to be seen. This is not Bond, the steely, assured figure of Craig’s past; this is something braver: a man allowing himself to want.

Guadagnino lets the camera linger and the atmosphere swallow us. The sweat, the neon-drenched nights, the sunburnt loneliness of a foreign land—it seeps into the frame, enveloping us in Lee’s muted agony. Over a video call, I spoke briefly with Guadagnino and Craig about Queer.

While being set in Mexico City, ‘Queer’ almost feels like it could be shot on a soundstage. Everything is inside. Were you going for a literal interiority of character as well as location?