"Queer" - Review

Adrift in Mexico in the 1950s, rakish hard drinking disaster Lee (Daniel Craig) lives as a homosexual man of his own means, cruising bars and induling in base vices to combat his self loathing. The arrival of an enigmatic serviceman by the name of Allerton (Drew Starkey) beguiles him, and leaves him reaching out through the fogginess of his own intercinine struggles to seek a connection.

Basing a film upon the works of William Burroughs is not exactly easy: his books are almost incomprehensible gibberish outsider art concocted by a walking amalgamation of bitterness and neurotic self hatred, glued together with drugs. This certainly feels like a passion project from Guadagnino who has managed to capture that meandering, sleazy, debauched sorrow and beat poetry from chaos: cutting apart words and passages, forming new order from that chaos, and finding a disordered beauty in that renewed chaos. Craig (on a tear ever since he managed to get his Bond money and bolt for the hills of good characters) is fantastic here: an outwardly self-confident rake who is just a massive dork beneath, awkward and trying to reach out and grasp at any form of connection. In between his drinking, smoking and rants about telepathy there is a genuine, lonely pathos which permeates throughout the film. There are moody, evocative, banquet-style shots to just lavish yourself in, immerse yourself in the sleazy bars and the scorching hot underbelly of a city unseen. It's good stuff, I really appreciate this strolling across gorgeously lit streets, getting trapped in a cycle of addiction and loneliness (his conversations with a fellow loser homosexual played by Jason Schwartzmann are evocative of late nights in bars with friends) and the anachronistic soundtrack by Trent Reznor (it opens on a beautiful Sinead O'Connor song, and "Come as You Are" plays early on) lends it almost a horror movie vibe to foreshadow the events to come, and how intrinsically drug-fuelled Burroughs is. The chemistry between Craig and Starkey is excellent: I appreciated the phantom dream-like squences dreaming of touching him, the enigmatic behaviour of Allerton which makes you ponder if he's leading Lee on, or if Lee is simply too horny to see anything else, it's solid stuff. I like the feeling of it all, the atmosphere and moods are exquisite. The film however, true to form with Burroughs, is meandering and rather thin on the ground in terms of plotting and ideas. There are longer but paletable stretches early ony, but the 3rd act when characters go to the jungle with the express purpose of taking a lot of drugs and hallucinating. The flesh-melding, expressionist, non literal expression of moods comes back, but it's started to feel a little meandering at this point. Still beautifully shot.
The madness of the affair never reaches Hunter S. Thompson territory, despite glimpses and flashes of crazy adventures, and it remains a heartfelt love story about a flawed man longing for connection.

"Conclave" - Review

Upon the death of the Pope, unassuming Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) assembles the College of Cardinals, in his capacity as Dean, to elect a new one. Secluded from the rest of the world, the Cardinals vote upon their preferred candidates: Liberal reformer Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci) hoping to capture the progressive vote; middle of the road Joseph Tremblay (John Lithgow) doing his own thing in the corner; popular Nigerian candidate Joseph Adeyimi (Lucian Msamati); and bespectacled Italian traditionalist Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellito) capturing a time long passed. Lawrence oversees this dramatic tug of war, and must also contend with a recently inducted Cardinal of Kabul, a young man known as Vincent Benitez (Carlos Diehz), and a simmering undercurrent of resentment and drama...

Well constructed with immaculate cinematography and impeccable sound design, very much a pedigree picture with the talent involved, it has an excellent speech from Fiennes at the start of the film about doubt. It weaves its themes of a man succumbing to the base instinct of ambition amongst this nest of vipers well, and the cast are strong across the board: particularly Fiennes, the ever wonderful Tucci, and the always excellent Lithgow and Rossellini; but Castellito also threatens to steal the show with a discussion of linguistics and boundary lines.
The weakness of the film comes in its writing and plotting, and I can only imagine that this is the result of being adapted from the often-silly novels of Jonathan Harris.
The examination of the Conclave and its procedure, a unique setting for its politics, is undercut by soap opera revelations and gossipy bickering, populated by characters we know are evil because...
John Lithgow plays Cardinal Tremblay, so we know he's up to no good, which is enhanced by every line reading requiring a twirl of his moustache. Cardinal Tedesco is vaping, so we know he's bad (though to be fair, there is a fun little contrast throughout of the cardinals in their finery using smartphones and smoking cigarettes, it's cute), and we know that the Nigerian cardinal is homophobic because a character tells us so. I like the characters when they are doing their politicking, but it is by the grace of the actors that they are saved from being cardboard cutouts. It jam packs a lot of things in, and just about juggles them, but it is at the expense of some of the plotting, and with one twist too many to keep it "fresh" and "daring".
Honestly I'd have been delighted with discussions of theology and terse arguments about doctrine and theory.
It's a solid film, and worth a rental.