I’ve Finally Processed James Bond Having Gay Sex and Now I’m Ready to Review It.

Warning: this contains spoilers for Queer (2024).

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t James Bond James Bond. But it was Daniel Craig. And they’re pretty much the same person.

Last Sunday I had the experience of watching Luca Guadignino’s Queer, directed by the same guy who made Call Me By Your Name and that weird ass cannibal movie[1]. The movie was based off the 1985 novel by William S Burroughs and is a sequel to his semi-autobiography Junkie. It centres around queer, American immigrant William Lee [2], played by Daniel Craig, living in Mexico and falling in love with a much younger, seemingly heterosexual man. Oh yeah, and a lot of gay sex.[3]

After viewing this movie, I was left with this overwhelming feeling of what-the-fuck-did-i-just-watch. I couldn’t tell if I’d just watched an absolute masterpiece or a complete and utter waste of my time. Now, after sitting on it for a few days, I can say I am leaning towards the latter.

This film wasn’t terrible, there was a fair amount to be liked. For example, there is no denying this film is visually stunning. It at minimum gave the impression that there was something deeper going on. I also really liked how the characters did things other than be gay. As much as I love myself a good Love Simon or a The Half of It every now and then, it gets a bit jarring when this is the only queer stories you see. It was nice to see queer people actually do things, even if it was drugs in the middle of the Ecuadorian rainforest. However, there is certainly much to be improved.

Let’s start with Gay James Bond, or William Lee. This character was painfully unrelatable, which honestly feels like a feat given his main arc. It’s a near universal queer experience to wonder whether your crush is also a bit fruity. Hell, it’s a near universal experience full stop to wonder if your crush likes your back. Yet somehow, Lee feels so removed, so unlikeable that I just couldn’t relate in the slightest. Although Daniel Craig did a masterful job with what we was given, Lee was just a rather unlikeable dude, which is a real shame, seeing as most supporting characters just simply didn’t have a personality. For example, the love interest was really there solely for Lee love, and didn’t really have much going on other than questioning his sexuality. The woman in the forest didn’t really have a personally past “don’t touch my research”. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with a dislikeable character, but when your only real character is dislikeable then there’s a wee bit of a problem.

There was also distinctive lack of any real conflict in Lee’s life. Not once in this movie did I find myself reaching for my non-existent popcorn because for some reason they don’t sell it at cinemas here. Everything that Lee wanted was just handed to him. Want to sleep with your taken, sexually questioning love interest? Okay, no problem! Want to move to Ecuador with him and have him just forget his girlfriend ever existed? Cool, just had to ask! Want to unlock the power of fucking telepathy? Just a stroll through the jungle and we’ll have it sorted in two business days! Not a thing that Lee wants in this film he struggles for. There is more conflict in deciding on a Subway sandwich [4] than in this entire film.

There were a few more handful of things that annoyed me. For example, Lee’s heroin addiction seemed to come out of nowhere and vanish as quickly as it appeared. Perhaps I wasn’t paying enough attention due to the woman next to me having the worst phone addiction I have ever witnessed, but one minute he’s out drinking with his crush and the next he’s in his room doing heroin. Later on, he gets diagnosed with dysentery from the withdrawal, prescribed more opioids, and we just forget that he ever had an addiction to start with. Seeing as how quintessential being a junky was to Burroughs, I would have expected more depth put into this, and his addiction not to be treated as some fleeting thing. Also, this film takes no gripes with showing Lee doing heroin in full detail. Not the best in my opinion, especially since there is no recovery or consequences other than a short bout of dysentery.

Although there are many more complaints I could make, I must refrain. Perhaps most of them come down to just not having read the source material. But honestly, I’ve got a gut feeling that Queer was never meant to be adapted for a screenplay, and the more I’ve read about it, the more my viewpoint feels backed up. As one example, like a straight man on Tinder, the movie casually forgets to ever mention that Lee had a wife, not to mention one who he murdered[5], which seems feels like a pretty important detail to me. I just feel like adapting a sequel without even touching the original has leaves so much to be desired. You can see specs of complexity, a real character, a real arc for Lee to go through. But there’s so much going on and so much trying to be gotten across that it all feels jumbled and loss. For that, my final rating for Junkie would be a 5/10. Although visually stunning, and a lot more entertaining than many of the films you’ll find in the depths of Netflix or Amazon Prime, I found the characters and story so weak the complexest part trying to get invested.  

Hasta luego,

Milly

1.     1. Bones and All.

2.     2. Fun fact: this was William S. Burroughs pen name, and possibly the laziest pen name I have ever seen.

3.     3. For anyone wondering, everyone mentioned in this paragraph is queer. Guadagnino is openly gay, Craig came out as pansexual in an interview on the Independent, and Burrough literally titled his semi-autobiography Queer and made his self-insert gay.

4.     4. Subway was mentioned because I miss the meatball subs. They don’t have them here.

5.     5. This was one of the truths that Burroughs imparted onto Lee in his novels. If you have watched the film, near the end there is a scene where he tries to shoot a shot glass off the top of his love interest’s head and misses. This is how Burroughs actually killed his wife.