The romantic 2024 dramaQueertells the story of American expat Lee (Daniel Craig) and young man Gene (Drew Starkey), while also exploring the complexities of love, attraction, and gay lifestyle in the 1950s. Directed by Luca Guadagnino and based on the 1985 novella of the same name by William S. Burroughs,Queertakes the audience to 1950s México City to meet Lee, an outcast among other queer people, who spends his time visiting the city’s clubs and trying to find new (and younger) sex partners.
One day, Lee sees Gene at a bar and is instantly attracted to him, but to his surprise, he finds himself unable to get close to him until Gene finally approaches him.Lee and Gene begin a sexual relationship, but Gene continues to be emotionally distant, while Lee craves emotional intimacy, while also dealing with substance-use disorder. A trip to South America that leads them into the jungle for a yagé/ayahuasca experience ends up being a turning point for Lee and Gene, and their connection and relationship aren’t the same by the time the ending ofQueerarrived.
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Why Lee & Gene Don’t End Up Together In Queer
Queer Doesn’t Have A Happy Ending
Before Lee meets Gene,Queershows that Lee tends to go after young men and lures them into having sex with him, with one of them telling his friend that Lee had been trying to sleep with him for a while and is unable to understand friendship between queer people. Lee’s problem isn’t that he’s incapable of friendship with other queer people because he absolutely can (he’s friends with Joe, played by Jason Schwartzman), but thathe craves love, care, and intimacy in every way, which can make him come off as desperate or clingy.
Lee and Gene’s relationship is merely sexual, and though Gene does care about Lee, the emotional intimacy Lee is looking for isn’t present with Gene.
Lee’s attraction to Gene is unlike any other he has experienced as he doesn’t even know how to approach him, and it’s not until Gene talks to him that he finally lets go and enjoys the experience. However, Lee and Gene’s relationship is merely sexual, and though Gene does care about Lee, the emotional intimacy Lee is looking for isn’t present with Gene. Lee inviting Gene to his trip to South America is an effort to get closer to him, but Gene doesn’t really change his ways.
Lee and Gene’s yagé “trip” is eye-opening for them, and when it’s over, instead of being closer, they are more apart than ever.
One of the reasons why Lee decides to go to South America is due to his interest in telepathy and the plant yagé, which he read is used to enhance telepathy. An expert on the subject sends Lee and Gene to the jungle to meet Dr. Cotter (Lesley Manville), a scientist who has studied the plant for years and can supervise its use. Lee and Gene’s yagé “trip” is eye-opening for them, and when it’s over, instead of being closer, they are more apart than ever.Lee and Gene leave and go their separate ways, and Lee remains single until his final day.
Why Lee Was So Interested In Telepathy
Lee Went To The Jungle To Unlock His Passion
Lee’s interest in telepathy is first mentioned at the beginning ofQueer, when he talks about it to one of the young men he’s interested in. Lee mentions he believes in telepathy and is interested in experiencing it, and for that, he would like to go through the experience of consuming yagé. Lee even mentions that he read that the US government and the Russians had been experimenting with yagé for mind control purposes, which has placed some stigma on the plant.
Lee is so interested in telepathy not just because he believes in it, but becauseit would be a much easier way for him to communicate his feelings to his partners, especially Gene. Lee struggles to connect and communicate with Gene, and his longing for intimacy with him is beautifully illustrated with a ghostly Lee physically reaching out to Gene, so telepathy would allow him to say what he feels and needs to Gene in an easier and more direct way.
What Lee & Gene’s Yage Experience Means
The Yage Experience Was An Eye-Opening One
Lee is warned more than once before the ending ofQueerthat taking yagé doesn’t get you high and is unlike anything he could get from any other drug. Lee has a dependence on opioids and regularly takes heroin, and during the trip to South America, he goes through intense withdrawal. Lee manages to get clean during the trip but insists on experiencing yagé, even after being warned thattaking it won’t take him to another “dimension” like other drugs, and instead, it’s a mirror, forcing the user to truly look at themselves.
Gene tells Lee that he isn’t queer and, instead, he’s incorporeal, a phrase Lee had said earlier inQueerin a dream.
Gene agrees to take yagé with Lee and they go through it with Dr. Cotter’s help, and just when they think the plant hasn’t hit, they start having a really weird but very intense experience. After vomiting their own hearts, Lee and Gene sit down in front of a bonfire andthey gradually vanish while communicating telepathically. Gene tells Lee that he isn’t queer and, instead, he’s incorporeal, a phrase Lee had said earlier inQueerin a dream. Although Lee says he already knew, he’s heartbroken, but in the middle of the yagé trip, his screams aren’t heard.
In a final attempt to get close to Gene beyond a sexual relationship, Lee and Gene’s bodies begin to merge as they embrace, and this is their final moment together. As the effects of the yagé wear down, Lee tries to reconnect with Gene, but the latter only wants to sleep. The following morning, Gene doesn’t talk to Lee and when they leave Dr. Cotter’s place, they part ways for good. The yagé trip is intensely eye-opening for both Lee and Gene, with the latterfinally being free enough to tell Lee he isn’t queer, and thus can’t love him the way he needs.
Lee gets what he wants from the “trip” as he experiences telepathy and can finally communicate with Gene, but, at the same time, he doesn’t get what he wants ashe realizes Gene will never love him and is going to leave him. In a final moment of symbolism inQueer, once Lee is back in México City two years later, he has another dream in which he finds a snake eating its own tail (the ouroboros) and Gene wearing a centipede necklace that comes to life.
Lee will continue in his own vicious cycle of loneliness, craving love, substance use, and being queer in an intolerant and repressive world.
The ouroboros is a symbol of the cycle of life and rebirth, but more than that, in Lee’s context, it’s more about how it consumes itself, the same way Lee will continue in his own vicious cycle of loneliness, craving love, substance use, and being queer in an intolerant and repressive world. On the other hand, the centipede simply walks away, very much like Gene does, and he moves on while Lee stays the same.
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What Happens To Gene After The Yage Trip
Gene & Lee’s Relationship Was Never The Same
As mentioned above,the yagé trip allows Gene to finally be fully honest with Leeand tell him he’s not queer and thus won’t love him the way he loves him. Even that night, Gene doesn’t want to talk about what happened and chooses to sleep while Lee stays awake, and the following morning, he doesn’t talk and refuses to open up even to Dr. Cotter. Gene is a couple of steps ahead of Lee when they leave Dr. Cotter’s house but suddenly disappears, and that becomes the last time Lee ever sees him.
Two years later, back in México City, Lee learns from Joe thatGene returned to the city but left six months earlier with an army colonel to South Americato be his tour guide, and even mentioned possibly coming across Lee. Gene either never returns to México City or Lee leaves at some point, but they never see each other again.
What Happens To Lee At The End Of Queer
Lee’s Story Has A Brief Time Jump
TheQueerending contains a time jump, as Lee continues his journey without Gene after the yagé experience and returns to México City two years later. Lee reunites with Joe at their favorite bar, where Joe tells him that Gene left six months ago. After that,Queercuts to the above-mentioned dream with the ouroboros and the centipede, in which Gene is sitting on a bed in the local hotel where Lee had previously had sexual encounters with other men. Gene puts a shot glass on his head and Lee shoots it, hitting Gene in the head.
Although Lee smiles at first, he then rushes to Gene’s body, kissing him one last time.Lee has now broken free of Gene but not entirely, as a part of him will continue to love him– or, perhaps, what he loves and holds on to is the idea of what could have been had Gene reciprocated his love.Queerhas one final time jump to an elderly Lee in that same hotel room, and instead of wearing his trademark white suit, he’s now wearing a black one.
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Lee lies down on the bed, on his side, trembling, like he did when he was going through opioid withdrawal, though this time without Gene. Memories of his time with Gene continue to play in his head, andLee dies alone in that bed, withQueer’s final shot being flashing lights of different colors.
The Real Meaning Of Queer
Queer Has Some Emotional Themes
While the one-sided love between Lee and Gene is the focal point ofQueer, there are other big themes addressed.Lee longs for emotional intimacy but doesn’t know how to get it, so he settles for purely physical relationships. While Lee lives a more free life as a queer man, Gene is the opposite, as he has succumbed to the social pressure of the 1950s against queer people and doesn’t allow himself to live his truth, and as a direct result of that, he doesn’t know what he wants, leading him to play with Lee’s feelings.
Even though Lee lives more freely,Queeralso shows how lonely it can be to be a queer person, as there’s still a void in him that he can’t fulfill, and this loneliness was more present in the 1950s. It’s unknown if Gene is ever able to freely live his life, be his true self, and find someone he can be himself with that he can love back, but at least for Lee, that loneliness stays until his final day, as well as his love for Gene.
How The Queer Ending Was Received
The Surreal Departure From Reality Received Many Thumbs Up
WhenQueerdebuted, there was a lot of buzz about potential awards season success, especially for Daniel Craig thanks to his incredibly strong performance as Lee. While the flood of accolades didn’t materialize in the end,Queerwas still received well by the majority of audiences and critics, with the 2024 film sitting on a health 77% Tomatometer rating (critical score) and 65% Popcornmeter rating (audience score) onRotten Tomatoes.While Craig’s performance and Luca Guadingo’s filmmaking skills have been central to most of the praise, the ending ofQueeris a key factor when it comes to the narrative, and many reviews have picked up on this.
Many critics, such as Matt Zoller Seitz ofRoger Ebertpraised theQueerending for how much it kept viewers guessing. While the movie may be based on Willam S. Burroughs' novel of the same name,Queerdeviates significantly from the source material by the time the credits roll, and becomes incredibly surreal. Reviewers like Seitz cited this as a strength of the movie’s final act, praisingQueerfor becoming an unpredictable dreamlike character study rather than follow the standard plot threads of an LGBTQ love story set in the 1950s:
“In time,[Queer]divests itself of any pretense of restraint or control and goes boldly and very deliberately into absurdism, showing the men losing themselves in each other and in drugs and losing their minds. They ultimately end up in the darkest reaches of a rainforest searching for an experimental hallucinogen that might give Bill the power of telepathy, a frequent in his conversations that you feel pretty sure is a setup for something. However, there’s no way to anticipate exactly what the delivery will be (know that this isnotthe book).”
Seitz' brought up the ending ofQueeragain in the closing statement of his review, celebrating how much the borderline-nonsensical final moments played into the overall viewing experience:
“It’s fun to watch it push itself to be more and more goofy-ridiculous and gothically excessive as it goes along, with prostheses and puppetry and CGI, until the movie begins to crack apart and deconstruct itself, becoming a junkie reprobate’s answer to “2001: A Space Odyssey,” complete with a sequence that’s a poetry-of-flesh riff on the Stargate sequence in which the astronaut Dave Bowman goes behind the infinite.”
Of course, not every viewer or critic agreed with Seitz, and there are almost as many who didn’t take kindly to the absurdism of the ending ofQueer.However, the argument here isn’t thatQueeris bad at what it tries to achieve in its final moment, more that the final moments don’t represent the story many thought they were signing on for. Regardless,Queercan be considereda success for both Daniel Craig and Luca Guadingo, and the bombastic finale definitely contributes to this for how much it allowed Craig to explore his range, and for how experimental it allowed Guadingo to be as a filmmaker.
Queer
Cast
Queer chronicles the life of American expat William Lee in 1950s Mexico City. His solitary existence changes with the arrival of Eugene Allerton, a young student, sparking a profound connection and altering Lee’s interactions within a small American community.
