Director: Luca Guadagnino
Mexico City in the 1950s, seen through the eyes of an American expatriate who can't stop watching a younger man across the room — that's the starting point for Luca Guadagnino's 2024 adaptation of William S. Burroughs' semi-autobiographical novel.
What is Queer about?
Lee has drifted into a loose community of fellow expatriates getting by on part-time work and old GI Bill checks, filling his days with bars and half-formed plans. Everything changes when Allerton, a younger and more guarded man, enters his orbit. What follows is less a conventional romance than a study of obsession, projection, and the distance between wanting to be known and actually being known. The film trades linear plotting for mood, tracing how desire curdles into dependency as Lee pushes further into behavior that isolates him even as he chases connection. Guadagnino leans into period detail and a hazy, dreamlike visual style, letting the story's more unsettling turns emerge gradually rather than through dramatic confrontation.
Cast & crew
Daniel Craig plays Lee against type, trading his more familiar controlled roles for something rawer and more exposed. Drew Starkey plays Allerton with a deliberate opacity, while Jason Schwartzman and Lesley Manville round out the expatriate circle with sharply drawn supporting turns.
Context & significance
The film is based on Burroughs' short, long-suppressed novel of the same name, written in the early 1950s but not published until decades later. Guadagnino, previously known for character studies built around longing and disconnection, approaches the source material as a mood piece rather than a strict period biography.
Where & how to watch
Queer streams on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, part of the platform's push to bring award-circuit international titles to Farsi-speaking viewers without waiting for a wider regional release. Login with a K-Time account to start watching.