A good movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but I have always been fascinated by William S. Burroughs and since it was directed by Luca Guadagnino, I was quite eager to check it out. It’s such a pity that I still didn’t get around to read one of his books (‘Junkie’, ‘Queer’ or ‘Naked Lunch’) but, hopefully, I’ll get there some day. At least, with this movie, I did get more acquainted with his work which was pretty cool. On top of that, Daniel Craig was just so good, he was really at the top of his game here. It might be shocking for the audience mostly familiar to see him playing James Bond but, way before that, Craig was already a rather fearless performer and he displayed some balls to play the complete opposite of the most masculine character ever created. However, in spite of Craig’s efforts, I still didn’t really get to know this guy after all, even if, for most of the duration, you are actually into his mind filled with longing, frustration, guilt and self-loathing. I mean, how did he get to Mexico? Why did he go there? How did he survive without a regular job? If you are familiar with Burroughs’s life, you will then know most of the answers to these questions (I did check his Wikipedia page afterwards) but you will certainly not know by only watching this movie. A major event in Burroughs’s life was how he killed his wife/girlfriend with a gun doing some William Tell act when he lived in Mexico, an event which was reproduced in this movie but, if you didn’t know Burroughs before watching the movie, you won’t really understand the impact this scene had on Burroughs himself. It was even more frustrating with the other characters, especially Eugene Allerton. Seriously, who was this guy? What was his deal? What was he thinking? At the end of the day, it felt as if his only value was that he looked like a Greek God but he didn’t seem to have much else to offer after all. At least, I have to admit that, for Drew Starkey, going from ‘Outer Banks’ to a gay drama written by Burroughs and directed by Guadagnino was a pretty cool and impressive stretch. Later on, they drank some ayahuasca in the jungle somewhere in South America and you get to see some far-out hallucinogenic scenes. However, the relationship between the two men remained as murky as it was before so it did feel rather pointless after all and even anti-climatic. Anyway, to conclude, it was still a decent watch though and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are either interested in Burroughs or Guadagnino’s work.