Reactions: Meh
Where to watch: Rent on AppleTV or Prime

As always with movies I don’t love, let’s start with what I did like.

What I liked:

• It was sexy, even if bizarrely so.
• I appreciated how awkward Daniel Craig played the main character.
• The younger guy was so aloof and “not queer.”
• Truly one of the best portrayals of ayahuasca or tripping on a psychedelic I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t how my aya trips went. But it was a nice visualization of it. Let’s just say there’s a lot more vomiting and crying than even portrayed in this portrayal.
• It’s nice to have a gay story that isn’t about death, loss, or illness (unless you count Craig’s drug addiction).

What I didn’t like:

• I get that it’s a “period piece” but Daniel Craig’s dialogue was too peculiar. I had to turn on subtitles just to understand what the fuck he was saying.
• You don’t have to base everything so literally on a book.
• As a movie it goes nowhere. That’s fine, because that was sort of the point of the expats and queer expats of that generation. But still, when adapting it to a movie, the writers could have given it a bit more of a modern touch.
• I don’t like much from the postmodern beat authors or artists generally. So it’s not a surprise I didn’t like this movie either.

I don’t really recommend this movie. You might enjoy it for the “gays in the 50’s” story, but I feel like we’ve seen so much of that recently. So, meh. It’s a pass for me.