Daniel Craig delivers a career-best performance in Luca Guadagnino's romantic drama "Queer," playing a gay American expat in 1950s Mexico City. The drama, featuring explicit love scenes, packed a house at its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday night, earning a nine-minute standing ovation.

As the applause began, Craig, red-faced and watery-eyed, embraced Guadagnino. The audience chanted, “Luca! Luca! Luca!” as the ovation continued, with each actor individually descending the steps of the Sala Grande to bow. During his turn, Craig blew kisses to the audience as his wife, Rachel Weisz, smiled proudly. When Craig and Starkey finally embraced, Guadagnino—and the rest of the audience—erupted in cheers as the two clasped hands in celebration.

Based on the 1985 novel of the same name by William S. Burroughs, “Queer” follows Lee (Craig), an American expat who “spends his days almost entirely alone, save for a few interactions with other members of his small American community,” according to the official synopsis. “His encounter with Eugene Allerton (Starkey), a young college student new to town, shows him for the first time that it might finally be possible to make an intimate connection with someone.”

While the film starts off conventionally, with a will-they-won't-they romance between Craig and Starkey's characters, the story eventually takes a psychedelic turn, involving hallucinations and imagination in a manner more akin to Guadagnino's supernatural horror film "Suspiria" than the romantic drama "Call Me by Your Name." Dozens of viewers walked out of a press screening earlier in the day, but the audience at the premiere seemed to appreciate the film more and stayed in their seats.