The upcoming movie Queer gets a rave review from the director of the Venice Film Festival. Queer is an upcoming film from Call Me By Your Name and Challengers director Luca Guadagnino that tells the story of a romance between a man named Lee and a younger man named Allerton, who is based on Adelbert Lewis Marker. Queer‘s leading cast includes Daniel Craig in the role of Lee and Drew Starkey as Allerton, with a supporting cast that includes Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman, David Lowery, Henrique Zaga, and Lisandro Alonso.

Speaking with Vanity Fair, the Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera hypes up Queer in advance of the film’s premiere at the festival. Barbera offered high praise for the film, calling it “the best film by Luca Guadagnino so far.” He was also entranced by Craig’s performance, calling it “absolutely outstanding.” He also mentioned that there were originally “three versions of the film,” which began at a cut longer than three hours and was winnowed down to an intermediary cut and the final cut which runs 2 hours and 15 minutes. Check out the full quote from Barbera below:

It’s not an easy film. It’s very bold, again. I don’t know if you are familiar with the book or not. It’s a short novel that was published only in 1985, right after the death of William Burroughs. It’s a very autobiographical novel when Burroughs was a drug addict and a gay man, and he was forced to leave Texas. He went to Mexico City, and he started to cruise in the bars and the restaurants trying to find company. The film is fantastic. I think it’s the best film by Luca Guadagnino so far, and the performance of Danny Craig is absolutely outstanding. I think it’s the performance of his life. He’s a great, great actor, and he takes some risks, of course, because it’s something that’s not in line with his previous films.

There were three versions of the film. The first one was more than three hours long. The second one was two and one half. The final version is two hours and 15 minutes. I haven’t seen the last one, but the two versions I saw were really, really amazing. Luca reconstructed Mexico City in Cinecittá, in Rome, so the visual is completely abstract, is not realistic. Again, it’s very personal, very original, beautiful from the visual point of view. And all the performances are absolutely outstanding.

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Barbera’s statement, especially given that he sees so many high-profile films in advance of the Venice Film Festival, is an outstanding testament to the film’s quality. Guadagnino is already known as an auteur director, helming Call Me By Your Name, Bones and All, and Challengers. If Queer is regarded as the director’s best by more than just Barbera, it seems almost certain that the film will go on to get copious praise from critics, and maybe even gain enough momentum to get awards attention.

Queer is one part of what is slated to be a massive slate for the Venice Film Festival this year. Running from August 28 to September 7, this year’s festival includes some major films featuring Oscar-nominated or otherwise A-list actors. This includes the Nicole Kidman-starring Babygirl, Julianne Moore’s The Room Next Door, and the upcoming action thriller Wolfs, which stars a dynamic duo of Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

Perhaps the most anticipated of them all is the Todd Phillips sequel film Joker: Folie à Deux. 2019’s Joker ended up making over $1 billion, so the sequel is expected to do fairly well. At the same time, the film’s star, Joaquin Phoenix, has been under fire recently after he dropped out of an upcoming Todd Haynes film just 5 days before the start of principal photography. As such, Joker: Folie à Deux is likely to be the subject of much discussion in Venice, but hopefully great films like Queer get the chance to shine too.

Source: VF

Queer (2024)

Director

Luca Guadagnino

Writers

William S. Burroughs , Justin Kuritzkes

Cast

Daniel Craig , Jason Schwartzman , Lesley Manville , Drew Starkey , David Lowery , Henrique Zaga , Ariel Schulman , Colin Bates