Call Me By Your Name is Grade A Oscar bait. It’s Moonlight‘s plot of a gay man learning about his sexuality, but set it picturesque Northern Italy and built around two stellar lead performances. Despite these condescending traps, Call Me By Your Name strips side stories and shows us a simple, beautiful, natural story about first love that rivals any of the great love stories seen on film.
Elio (Timothee Chalamet) is a well read full blown teenager living in Northern Italy in the 1980s. His life gets an injection of new feelings when his dad (Michael Stuhlbarg), a professor, invites a new grad student to help him with his research. That student is Oliver (Armie Hammer) an American man in his 20s. The two then embark on a great onscreen courtship, feeling each other out before realizing their friendship might actually be something more.
The relationship between Elio and Oliver is one of the most realistic, natural romances between two people I have seen depicted on screen. Director Luca Guadagnino shoots the early scenes like two guys who were becoming best friends. There’s friendly chiding and condescending, dancing with girls, bike rides and history studies. But during these times, you see overt touching, careful preparation for a conversation, asking where the other is to not arouse suspicion, etc, especially from Elio. During a scene where Elio is being openly seduced by a beautiful Italian girl who wants him to hook up with her, he places his watch facing her so he can count down the minutes until he can see Oliver again. As this relationship heats up, the two drop the sarcastic exteriors, and expose their true feelings to one another, excited to see their feelings reciprocated. Kudos to Armie Hammer, who not only looks great shirtless in short shorts, but also tries to show himself and take the lead for the eager but innocent Elio. Even more praise for young Timothee Chalamet (also involved in another great realistic coming of age story this year). Chalamet very perceptively shows us how a 17 year old who knows he likes someone would act. He perpetually has his guard up, but he keeps pushing to go with Oliver whenever he does something, always asking him questions or finding excuses to touch him or get him to take his shirts off via swimming, etc. In secret, he spends his time figuring out what Oliver likes so he can learn about it to converse with him, and as he learns Oliver reciprocates, he lets his guard down and bears his young heart to be embraced or broken like any of us did to our first loves.
But, like most first loves, there’s usually an end date. Call Me By Your Name quietly points out the outside forces working against Elio and Oliver. In 1983, gay rights were not a thing yet, quite the opposite. So all their meetings are carefully planned and in secret. They also have to deceive people they like about their true feelings towards each other; easy for Oliver but harder for the infatuated Elio. As such, their time together is beautiful, but limited. The two realize it as their relationship blossoms, and their end feels woefully short to the two of them. Oliver is old enough to move on decently enough, but as expected, Elio is crushed. There’s a heartbreaking phone exchange Elio has after Oliver’s departure where you feel all of Elio’s pain, which clearly hits right to his heart. Making things worse for Elio is he can’t talk to anyone about this for fear of ostracizing (the movie mercifully remedies this by giving Michael Stuhlbarg a best supporting actor “For Your Consideration” moment). The gut wrenching pain on display by Chalemet makes you feel everything that poor kid feels after losing a first love, including an amazing unbroken sequence over the credits.
Call Me By Your Name will conjure a host of feelings buried deep inside of you. Right after the movie, my courtship and breakup of my first love dwelled in my head, even though not all of these memories are happy, they are still very powerful. Thanks Armie Hammer and especially Timothee Chalamet, for finding the truth and power in what those first strong connections actually look and feel like. And thanks for proving once again that everyone should just move to Northern Italy; just…wow.