Every year,the Academy Awardsnominations are sure to vindicate some movie lovers and enrage some others. The 2024 movies that have been celebrated are fairly predictable, with a few key films garnering nominations in the double digits while everything else was left to fight for scraps. Unfortunately — and absurdly — that led the Academy voters to overlook one of the absolute best performances of the year:Daniel CraiginLuca Guadagnino’sQueer.
Daniel Craig’s Performance in ‘Queer’ Is Crystallized in One Stunning, Wordless Scene
Queeris based on the unfinished novella of the same name byWilliam S. Burroughs, which is itself based on Burrough’s own time living in Mexico City during the 1950s. Because of the autobiographical nature of the text, and the fact thatBurroughs has a controversial, tragic, and confounding life story(seriously, Burrough’s Wikipedia page is quite the rabbit hole), Craig’s character is essentially a fictionalized version of the author. Craig portrays William Lee, an American expat in his 50s who wanders around Mexico City cruising for younger men. We are introduced to Lee through this routine of nightly bar hops and one-night-stands that lead to early day-drinking and looking around for the next man who might catch his eye.
Luca Guadagnino’s First Feature Was This True-Crime Documentary Starring Tilda Swinton
The director’s strangest film is based on a real murder.
But there’s a dark turning point in which we see Lee, an addict, shoot up heroin after coming home alone one evening. This sequence, which plays out wordlessly as New Order’s “Leave Me Alone” —one of the film’s many heart-stopping, anachronistic needle drops— accompanies Lee’s isolated sorrow.Craig wears a lifetime of regrets and grief and pain on his face, and in just a few minutes of silently, solemnly looking on, he has given us every ounce of context we could need to understand why Lee is the way he is.
The intoxicating nature of love and attraction present inQueerechoes the likes ofWong Kar-wai. Lee’s aimless, moving journey of the soul throughout the film reflects many Kar-wai protagonists, resigned to a life of what-ifs and mistakes that can never be undone. Lee is frequently intoxicated, whether by liquor or lust or heroin, but the moments of sober, bleak reflection that Craig pulls off will cut through and strike you right in the heart.
In ‘Queer,’ Daniel Craig Masterfully Plays a Lonely, Haunted Man
For William Lee, each night of cruising, each drink, each drug-fueled indulgence is merelyan escape from a soul-crushing feeling of loneliness. He lives a lifestyle of carnal and immediate pleasures, but they are merely filling him in between bouts of misery, where he yearns so strongly that a ghostly form literally projects from him throughout the film, finding the embrace that his physical form can never secure.
Lee is a complicated, imperfect character, one whose mileage communicates a lot about his past. Craig is given a great deal of context, from both the novella andthe life of Burroughs himself, and weaves it all into a performance that is intimate, uncomfortably vulnerable, and unlike anything he has ever done before. The suaveness of his tenure asJames Bondis sanded down. His light, funny charm, emphasized in his role as Benoit Blanc inKnives Out, comes off as stilted and too tightly wound. You are not seeing Daniel Craig, the movie star. You are seeing William Lee, a sad and broken man who is desperately trying to find a meaningful human connection and to escape his inner demons. Not only is this one of the best performances of last year, but it is undoubtedly the greatest performance of Craig’s career.
Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Challengers’ Was Also Snubbed by the Academy
Even looking past Craig’s performance inQueer, it is still a shock that the Academy did not nominate Gudagnino himself,Trent ReznorandAtticus Ross, writerJustin Kuritzkes, or cinematographerSayombhu Mukdeeprom, for their work on this filmor their collaboration onChallengersearlier in the year.Gudagnino, Reznor and Ross, Kuritzkes,and Mukdeeprom brought their artistic skills together for two major releases in 2024 that went over extraordinarily well.
ChallengersandQueerare two of the year’s most beautiful, well constructed movies. It is a shame that all the dedicated craft on display in these films has gone unnoticed by the Academy. Along with the shocking snub ofChallengers' electrifying soundtrack, Craig’s performance being overlooked is the biggest misstep from this year’s voting body.Queerwas certainly the lesser seen of these two movies, buttime will be kinder to both of these films than this awards season has been, and Craig’s intensely moving performance will go down as one of the best.
Queeris available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.
Rent on Prime Video
Set in 1940s Mexico City, it follows an American expat named Lee (played by Daniel Craig) who becomes infatuated with a younger man, Eugene Allerton (played by Drew Starkey). The film explores themes of longing, isolation, and obsession.
