I like the guy, but I can't stand to be alone with him

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2024

#32 : Queer

Daniel Craig plays an American expat living indolently in Mexico City in a sometimes uproarious adaptation of William Burroughs’s autobiographical novel.


Skipping over Hoard (#33) which is a "deeply strange and compelling study of loneliness and thwarted sexuality" that I just don't feel the need for in my life brings us to a film I've actually heard of because it got good reviews in various end-of-year write-ups. And I'm looking forward to it because Daniel Craig is generally good value - this is our third visit with him.

Well, yeah - he is indeed an "American expat living indolently in Mexico City". And (surprise, surprise) he's queer. And for the first hour, that's all we've got - he notices a guy he likes the look of (played by Drew Starkey) and stalks him, finally getting his wicked way with him. And given that there was still another 1:40 to go, I'm afraid I gave up on it there - life's too short for such things, I'm afraid. Checking Wikipedia, other stuff does happen in the rest of the film (some involving ayahuasca, so I suspect things get pretty messy) but it sounded like I was quite fine without it. 

I would say that, for something where very little happens, it happens very stylishly. I've no idea what Mexico City in the 50s?/60s? was like, but it feels like it would have looked pretty much like this (although there MUST have been more people around) with a load of nice retro touches. 

And Daniel does his remarkably little very well in a very unglamorous fashion -  he positively reeks of desperation and lost youth. Drew Starkey's role is more stand-offish and he stands off nicely enough, but it doesn't feel like it was a massive stretch for him. We also met Jason Schwartzman in a slightly manic role (again not a huge stretch for him, it appeared) and if we'd have hung around for longer we would have bumped in to Lesley Manville - sorry, Lesley but I'm sure you're great.

And that's all I've got really. If you like a film that feels like it's adopting a classic American novel classically, then it's probably right up your street, but the content to length ratio was just too low for me, I'm afraid - I just feel that if you're going to make a film that's over 150 minutes long, then SOMETHING needs to happen! Yes, I know I'm so unreasonable - maybe the other half of the film is action packed, but somehow I doubt it (and if it is, why didn't they put some of the action in the first half!?!)

#34 - A surprisingly poor film that made no sense

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