Call Me by Your Name

Up until very recently, I thought for sure Pixar's Coco was going to be my favorite movie of the year until I saw Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name, a film filled with quiet longing, deep passion and moving romance. I went in to the film only knowing the broad strokes of the story and came out completely blown away. It is a quiet, slow burning film that keeps its focus on it's characters rather than plot in some ways that people may find unconventional.

Elio (played by Timothee Chalamet) is spending his summer with his parents at their 17th Century Villa in the Northern Italy countryside. His father, Mr. Perlman (played by Michael Stuhlbarg), is an eminent professor specializing in Greco-Roman culture and is hosting graduate student Oliver (played by Armie Hammer) for the summer while Oliver finishes his thesis. Initially perturbed that his has to give up his bedroom to the visiting Oliver, the two start to bond when Elio is tasked with showing Oliver around the village. Elio finds himself taken with the laid back Oliver and as his feelings deepen towards Oliver a playful flirtation begins. When Elio finally declares his love for Oliver, a secret summer affair begins that leave both men changed forever.

The film is directed by Luca Guadagnino from a script by James Ivory and is based on the novel by Andre Aciman. Guadagnino gives the film a very deliberate pace that allows the audience to almost be able to feel long summer days in the Italian countryside that is the film's backdrop. He holds on single shots for a long time, allowing the viewer to absorb the scene and take it all in. He also does wonders with keeping every scene on the same level and the same approach. There are no "big" scenes in the movie. A simple scene of Elio and Oliver riding bikes down a country road is treated with the same care and simplicity as their more romantic moments. That is part of what made the film so absorbing for me. The cinematography by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom is absolutely gorgeous as it captures the beautiful scenery as well as the country house the film largely takes place in and compliments the story beautifully.

The performances in the film are incredible with fantastic turns by both the leads, Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer. Chalamet does a fantastic turn as Elio, not just mastering the technical challenges of the character being trilingual, switching between English, Italian and French, sometimes in the same sentence, but also capturing the emotional core of the character. Elio is the child of two Academics and is therefore very book smart and wise beyond his years, yet emotionally is very much inexperienced, especially when it comes to love. Chalamet does a great job showing these two sides of his character, who on one hand uses his book smarts, especially in relation to music and literature, to playfully antagonize Oliver in their flirtatious one upmanship they play in the first half of the movie with his romantic inexperience that has him hesitating to voice his attraction to Oliver. Hammer likewise gives perhaps his best performance as Oliver, wonderfully showing Oliver's hesitancy to get involved with Elio, knowing he has to go back to America at the end of the Summer. He does eventually give in and the chemistry between the two is electric. I also have to give a special notice to Michael Stuhlbarg as Elio's father. He's long been an actor I've really enjoyed and he's great here. There is a moment towards the end of the film between Elio and his father and his father imparts some great wisdom to his son and the way Stuhlbarg plays the scene is magnificent and was very moving. 

Call Me by Your Name is easily one of my favorite movies of the year, if not my favorite. I wasn't prepared for how potent of a story it was going to give me, with the magnificent performances and great writing. I loved that the film had basically no conflict. Elio gets along great with his parents and you can see the love they share for one another. There is playful banter between Elio and Oliver in the beginning, but that's not the same thing. There is no big, cliched fight or antagonizing between any of the characters. The biggest villain in the film is time. Sooner or later, Oliver is going to have to go back home to America. There's something beautiful about a movie that can work like that. It is absolutely a movie that I feel deserves to be seen in a theater, free from distractions, on the biggest screen possible to take in all that gorgeous cinematography. I only checked the clock on my cell phone once and that was because I was afraid the movie was going to be over soon. What does that say when I don't want the movie to end? When I want to keep watching it, keep spending time with those characters, keep spending time in that gorgeous Italian scenery? I think it says a lot, actually.