Movie · 2024 · Drama, Romance · 2h 18m · R · English
Curator score: 4.2/10 (485.2K ratings)
I'm not Queer, I'm disembodied.
Overview
In 1950s Mexico City, William Lee, an American ex-pat in his late forties, leads a solitary life amidst a small American community. However, the arrival in town of Eugene Allerton, a young student, stirs William into finally establishing a meaningful connection with someone.
Ratings
Curator score: 4.2/10
IMDb: 6.3/10
Letterboxd: 3.34/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 77%
Metacritic: 72
TMDB: 6.5/10
Director
Luca Guadagnino
Production
Fremantle, The Apartment Pictures, Frenesy Film
Cast
Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman, Lesley Manville, Henrique Zaga, Drew Droege, Andra Ursuta, Lisandro Alonso, Ariel Schulman, David Lowery, Daan de Wit, Colin Bates, Simon Rizzoni, Octavio Mendoza, Omar Apollo, Silverio Castro, Amir Antonio Samande Chavez, Andrea Montserrat Rios Hernandez, Claudio Cardenas, Gilberto Barraza
Where to watch
Max
Curator Review
Verdict
A lush, feverish romantic drama with striking visual control and a strong sense of yearning, but its deliberately elusive characters and drifting narrative will leave some viewers cold. It’s best approached as an atmosphere piece about desire, loneliness, and self-erasure rather than a conventional love story.
Best for
Viewers who like sensual, mood-driven cinema
Fans of psychologically unstable romance
People interested in queer desire and loneliness on film
Viewers open to surreal, impressionistic storytelling
Skip if
You want a clear, plot-forward romance
You need emotionally accessible characters
You dislike slow, opaque, or highly stylized films
You prefer grounded realism over dreamlike eroticism
Overview
Queer is less interested in romance as comfort than as compulsion. Luca Guadagnino turns longing into a tactile, uneasy experience: bodies brush, rooms sweat, and every glance feels charged with need and uncertainty. Daniel Craig gives the film its bruised center, playing a man whose desire is inseparable from loneliness and self-delusion.
Worth noting
The film’s greatest strength is its atmosphere. It is seductive, disorienting, and often beautiful in a way that feels psychologically exact rather than merely decorative. The imagery and sound design work together to create a fever dream of obsession, one that keeps slipping away from easy interpretation.
Bottom line
That same quality is also why it may not fully connect for everyone. The characters are intentionally opaque, and the story can feel more like a series of emotional states than a dramatic arc. If that approach clicks, the film can feel haunting and transfixing; if it doesn’t, it may seem distant and frustrating.
Top Letterboxd reviews
pieboni (4★) · 19257 likes
boners and all
iana (5★) · 17353 likes
luca films bodies like no one else. entangled legs sharing heat, the phantom touch of a hand gliding across a ribcage, desiring someone so deeply that you want to quite literally sink into their skin.
zoë rose bryant (5★) · 15907 likes
who among us hasn’t had a psychotic break over a situationship with a toxic but beautiful twink
Jay (4★) · 13377 likes
more directors should lure you in with hot gay summer before taking you on a psychological nightmare