Luca Guadagnino’s stunning film, based on William S Burroughs’ novel, has the cool, nocturnal colour palette of an Edward Hopper painting- at least for the first half. The second is febrile and fiery. Despite the anachronistic soundtrack (Sinead O’ Connor, Nirvana, New Order, Prince etc)it captures the druggy patina of fifties Mexico.
Daniel Craig as Bill Lee doesn’t quite capture Burroughs’ louche, loose-limbed intellectualism, or gnarled purr, but he’s pretty soulful and wry, falling hopelessly in love with a younger man Gene ( Drew Starkey, a fine gawky foil ) who looks like a younger version of Burroughs himself.
He’s falling to pieces in real time, cutting a vulnerable figure as he tries to kick his substance addiction. The whole film treads a fine line, as does Lee, between seeking purpose and wading in hedonism. Nothing is sugar-coated, but there’s a strange, furtive, almost -romanticism. Lee is equally doggish in his relentless pursuit of opiates as of bookish men. It rather reminded me of John Waters’ assertion that homosexuality was more fun when it was illegal.
There’s a real tenderness here: it’s melancholic, erotic and slightly elusive in the depiction of what’s hallucinatory and what is not. The cat and dog nature of their relationship is only surpassed by Lee’s pursuit of the yage drug to induce telepathy. The ‘schlupping’ scene is especially impressive, as is Lesley Manville as their eccentric drug advisor, Dr Cooper. A glorious, lyrical film.
