Directed by: Luca Guadagnino
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg
Rated R, 132 minutes
There is much about “Call Me by Your Name” that should alienate it from the average American moviegoer of 2018. Set in idyllic northern Italy in 1983 and depicting a quiet romance between two academically inclined Jewish men, the movie would seem to peg itself as inaccessibly arthouse. And make no mistake, this is a slow, at times irritatingly precocious movie, and one with few surprises. Nevertheless, “Call Me by Your Name” is a moving, indelible film, because rather than attempting to push something extraordinary upon us, it shows us the little recognizable truths that so often go unspoken and leaves us to grapple with them.
On the surface, the film’s plot bears a striking similarity to that of virtually any other young love story you may have seen, with the one twist that the leads are both men. Boy meets boy; boy finds boy arrogant and uncouth, but unexpectedly finds himself attracted to boy, and is later surprised to learn that the feeling is reciprocated. Finally, boy and boy join in a harmonious display of infatuation, which is cut off too soon by circumstances outside of their control, although not before we get plenty of scenes of late-night swimming in secluded lagoons, bike rides down long pastoral roads, notes passed under doors, and so on.
What could have easily felt like another fantastical story of lovers in Paradise is kept grounded by a script that makes clear that this idealism is the byproduct, not the source, of the central relationship. The romance between the two men truly builds in the smaller moments: a hand brushing a shoulder, perhaps by accident and perhaps not; a request to play a song on the piano a certain way; even the closing of a bathroom door—in other words, all the tiny gestures that feel so large to someone newly in love. That such a nuanced and honest script could come from James Ivory, the filmmaker best known for the dully genteel period pieces he made with Ismail Merchant, is nothing short of a miracle.
More impressive still are the performances of the film’s leads, Timothée Chalamet (“Lady Bird”) and Armie Hammer (“The Social Network”). Chalamet, as the young, bookish musician Elio, shows us alternately the hopefulness of young love, embarrassment at one’s own crudeness, the despair of watching the object of his affection paying him no attention, and confusion at how to physically be with another in a way that adequately conveys the magnitude of his feelings. And Oliver, a graduate student who meets Elio when he comes to work for Elio’s father for the summer, is a fascinating foil to the younger boy. A proud foreigner, confident and outwardly invested in other interests, Hammer’s Oliver is slyly observant, and eventually, surprisingly, passionate.
Director Luca Guadagnino, given these talented actors and this remarkably layered script, creates an atmosphere of almost unbearable dreaminess for them to inhabit, complete with a fluttering piano-driven score and visuals that recall the laziness and restlessness of a summer spent in boredom. The film’s editing, meanwhile, draws our attention to the smallness of the scenes; some scenes consist entirely of someone walking into a room, or walking out of a room, or closing a door. Like last year’s “Manchester by the Sea,” “Call Me by Your Name” revels in the brief snippets that add up to a story, rather than predetermined plot points that force one.
If Guadagnino has misjudged anywhere, it’s in the film’s final act, which searches in vain for a clean way to tie up the loose ends previously laid out. What could have ended on a wistfully ambiguous note instead ends with an overacted epilogue, a devolution into melodrama that the film up till then eschews.
Nevertheless, “Call Me by Your Name” remains a deeply satisfying film, because the production details and the characteristics that bind Elio and Oliver work together to evoke something familiar, even universal. And while the movie centers on a gay relationship, the orientation of its characters has nothing to do with the drama that unfolds; this is not a movie about gay love, but a movie about love. And in being so simple, so apolitical, it feels at once both charmingly anachronistic and excitingly ahead of its time.
Originally published in The Harvard Press on 2/23/18.