“I want to talk to you, without speaking.”
Queer is a film about the unattainable, and Guadagnino makes this abundantly clear through his meticulous use of symbolism. William Lee’s (Daniel Craig) infatuation with Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) is less about the man himself and more about the abstract ideal he represents. Allerton becomes a cipher, a stand-in for everything Lee believes will complete him. Guadagnino amplifies this through recurring visual motifs: mirrors that distort rather than reflect, doorways that frame…
