For What it's Worth

“Queer” and “Nightbitch”

‘Queer’ (2024)

Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William Burroughs’ semiautobiographical novella is a steamy walk on the wild side set in 1950s Mexico City and destinations south. Bond guy Daniel Craig goes all-in as Burroughs alter ego William Lee, a compulsive yet civil expat with means and a predatory tick. For those who wondered what Craig would do after letting go of 007, “Queer” signals something more than just the bawdy good fun of his Benoit Blanc romps (“Knives Out,” “Glass Onion”). Here, the actor turns in a bold change-up that’s more than worthy of awards banter. Lee has relocated to Mexico, because – at the time – it was one of the few havens for a man of stature wanting to pursue same-sex dalliances as well as illicit drug use without the inherent social and legal persecution that was (and still is?) rife and looming in the states. Beyond the bustling “queer” community Lee’s embedded in, he can score smack or coke easily around the corner, a real win-win for a gentlemanly hedonist. The film’s broken into three chapters, the first two focusing on Lee’s obsessive pursuit of a tall, sculpted, younger lad by the name of Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), another American hanging out in Mexico City trying to work out their place in the world and through the bigger ideological issues that confronted Burroughs and his fellow Beats. For a good long while, Allerton remains at an arm’s length, aloof and just out of reach, but “Queer” morphs into something of a buddy road trip as we steer into the third chapter and the pair head to Ecuador and Panama with the goal of greater euphoria and enlightenment (and telepathy, Lee hopes). The circumstances that led Burroughs to Mexico, and to write “Queer,” are intriguing: He had just accidentally shot and killed his wife, Joan Vollmer, during a drunken game of Willam Tell (leading also to Burroughs’ 1954 novel, “Naked Lunch,” adapted adroitly to the screen by David Cronenberg in 1991). Given its content, “Queer” would not get published until 1985. Guadagnino, who’s skilled at projecting carnivorous carnality on screen (“Suspiria,” “Challengers,” “Bones and All”), simmers up a slow-building character study steeped in lust and drugs. As with all the Italian auteur’s films, “Queer” is crafted gorgeously from a cinematic standpoint, but its dips into surrealism late in the film are narratively awkward. There’s a thinness and slight disjointedness that at times threaten to pull one out, but even those foibles are offset easily by Craig’s screen-consuming commitment to the part.

‘Nightbitch’ (2024)

Rachel Yoder’s novel, which touched a nerve about the disproportional contributions the male and the female of the species make when it comes to child rearing, looked primed for the big screen with Amy Adams cast in the lead and the capable Marielle Heller to direct. Heller, as you may recall, blazed her way onto the screen with the intimate 2015 coming-of-age drama “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” but here, with Yoder’s experimental text about a mother who may or may not be transforming into a dog (thus the title), domestic themes dealing with the onus of matronly nurture, the male provider complex and even the glass ceiling feel contrived and forced. “I don’t want to be trapped inside a 1950s marriage,” says Adams’ Mother (the characters have no names) to her clueless husband (Scoot McNairy). He’s not a bad guy, but does regularly drop into video game oblivion as Mother, ever put upon (or so that’s the lens of the film), tends to their 2-year-old. “Nightbitch” is a deeply internal film, with Mother reflecting regularly on (and brooding about) her status and the relative (in)equality in the homestead. The kick comes when she starts to commune with the pack of dogs that roam her suburban neighborhood; later her teeth get sharp and pointy, meat becomes a must munch, patches of fur begin to spring up here and there and there’s the unsavory discovery of a burgeoning tail. “An American Werewolf in London” (1981), this is not. The context of what is real and what is not is often hard to glean – and more so, you just don’t care. Sure, it’s a clear manifestation of Mother’s emotional state and a bigger metaphor for the unrecognized burden of motherhood being taking for granted, but as presented it’s lazily murky, unlike how Mary Harron’s “American Psycho” (2000) deftly blurred reality, delusion and the externalization of emotional anxiety. Adams puts in a game effort, but Mother’s not that deep or interesting, and neither is McNairy’s husband, resulting in a generic couple living generic lives and going through generic ennui. The pooch stuff, as rendered, feels tacked-on. As a feminist poke, “Nightbitch” makes its point, but not convincingly so. It’s frustrating to watch the talented Adams (“Arrival,” “American Hustle”) dig deep only to get collared by a flat script, and the cinematic act of going from reality to body-morphing alter reality should have been punched up more. “Nightbitch” whimpers slowly into the night, a fangless could-have-been. 

Tags: Daniel Craig, Film, Luca Guadagnino, movies, queer