‘Queer' Polarizes Venice

UPDATE: Reviews are in, and they are all over the place. Mixed reactions from Screen, The Wrap, The Film Stage, Vulture, The Times, Next Best Picture, and mildly positive takes from Variety, The Playlist, Deadline, Vanity Fair, BBC, and Radio Times.

The raves are coming in from IndieWire, THR, The Telegraph, The Guardian, ICS, IGN and ScreenRant.

EARLIER: Above is our first clip of Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer.” It looks like it was shot to resemble an Edward Hopper painting. Beautiful.

Judging by the reactions to this morning’s screening of “Queer,” we’re in for one of the more polarizing films of the Venice competition. Tackling the unpredictable rhythms of William S. Burroughs, “Queer” is said to be scattershot and all over the place, but also “surreal,” “baffling” and “audacious.”

As far as I’m concerned, the film sounds fascinating. It’s said to have a very experimental narrative, with “plenty of long shots and strange, nightmare-esque sequences that can sometimes lead to absolutely nowhere.” However, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s cinematography is said to be “stunning.”

I was told there were some boos and cheers at the end of this morning’s press screening. The overall consensus seems to be mixed. The review embargo is set to be lifted later today (12:45PM ET) so we’ll get a better idea of the critical consensus in just a few hours.

Last week, Deadline reported that the response to “Queer,” amongst distributors, had been “polarizing.” The film screened for most of the major U.S. distributors, but none had been enticed enough to acquire it. A few days later, A24 hopped onboard the film.

Venice boss Alberto Barbera has also confirmed that the production budget for “Queer” was 48 million Euros, which roughly translates to around $53M. We’ve already tackled how Guadagnino snipped over an hour of footage from his original cut, potentially to make the film more accessible for release.

Here’s a Letterboxd reaction of “Queer” that makes the case for the longer cut:

Some scenes felt unfinished, awkward cuts that ruined the pacing, and nonsense edits that are jarring. I heard that “Queer” was originally over three hours and Luca had to cut it down, I guess to make the movie more appealing to market and distribute, but if that’s the case you can tell Luca rushed the edit.

Based on William S. Burroughs’ controversial novel, Guadagnino’s film wrapped production last July and recently wrapped editing. The film stars Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman, Lesley Manville, Omar Appolo, Henrique Zaga, Andres Duprat, Ariel Shulman, Drew Droege, Colin Bates, and filmmakers Lisandro Alonso, David Lowery, and Michael Borremans.