Review: Call Me By Your Name (Guadagnino, 2017)

After watching Call Me By Your Name, I left the cinema knowing I had enjoyed the film thoroughly, but it did not leave the impression that I was seeking. As I was waiting for my train home, I tired to read. But I could not stop thinking about the film. I again tried to pick my book back on whilst on the train, and no, my mind was fully occupied with the film.

This is not the first time one of Luca Guadagnino’s films has done this to me. I left the cinema after watching A Bigger Splash (2016) truly disappointed. However the film stayed with me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. When I re-watched the film I couldn’t believe that I had ever disliked it. With Call Me By Your Name however, I left having really enjoyed the film, but now I believe it is one of the best films of the year.

Call Me By Your Name, an adaptation of the 2007 novel by American writer André Aciman, is a coming of age tale – a mediation on first loves, summer romance, identity and sexuality. Set in 1983, somewhere in Northern Italy as the titles tell us, 17 year old American-Italian Elio (Timothée Chalamet) is about to settle into his summer of reading, transcribing music and swimming. Elio’s summer is disrupted by the arrival of handsome, American, PhD student Oliver (Armie Hammer) who has moved into Elio’s family home for the summer to work with his professor father (Michael Stuhlbarg).

Unfazed initially by the charming, yet some what arrogant American, Elio is jealous, seemingly of the female attention his house guest is receiving. It isn’t until a brief touch of the shoulder from Oliver, which triggers something in the teenager. And we all realise where the jealously really lies.

A sun soaked romance, it is impossible not to be seduced by Call Me By Your Name. A slight touch of the hand, and the lingering between lips is so delicately dealt with that you cannot help but be transported to the first time you brushed hands or lips with the one you love. Guadagnino makes the controversially but brave choice here by not showing the sex shared between Elio and Oliver as explicitly as that shown between Elio and Chiara. This isn’t a of Guadagnino not wanting to risk showing same sex romance on the screen however. By doing this, it only heightens the intimacy between the young men. These moments do not need to shared between anyone else but themselves.

Michael Stuhlbarg, Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer appear in Call Me by Your Name by Luca Guadagnino, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

The sensuality of the film is only enhanced by Mukdeeprom’s cinematography (who also shot Guadagnino’s upcoming Suspiria remake). Everything contained in a medium shot, his lens never misses a an atmospheric trick; every ripple of water, every flood of sunlight, every little movement is captured by Mukdeeprom’s in beautiful, soft focus.  The self-contained nature of frame really enhances the stifling heat of the Italian summer and the bubbling tension of the two lovers.

The way that Guadagnino constructs the pacing of Call Me By Your Name is also perfect; it grows like a relationship. It is slow and aching with tension in the first hour. It then excitingly quickens in its middle segment. Then devastatingly still as the end.

Call Me By Your Name however truly is as magnificent as it it however, due to the performances. This is Elio and Oliver’s story and the story is owned by them. Timothee Chalame’s Elio is awkward, confused, endearing yet strong and proves that he is one to keep an on in the future. The real is surprise of the film is Armie Hammer, who along with Free Fire (Wheatley, 2017) is having a great year. Oliver is a role that seems to of been created for Hammer and gives a chance for him to show real depth and warmth to this character, which his hasn’t shown before.

The chemistry between the two leads is undeniable, nevertheless the stand out scene of the film for me, isn’t a moment shared between Elio and Oliver. It is a moment shared between Elio and his father. The final monologue between the two (featuring an all round terrific performance from Michael  as the liberal professor) is equally breathtaking and heartbreaking. Comforting and accepting Elio but most important urging him to lead a life that he was too scared to leave. Leaving what that life is, fully subjective to the audience.

Despite being an adaptation, Call Me By Your Name is arguably Guadagnino most personal work. Set in a town not to far away of from where Guadagnino grew up, there is a sense of familiar in the way that he portrays Elio’s summer. There is a strong sense of nostalgia is the film; the clothes and the music firmly setting us in the 1980’s. Guadagnino deals with the nostalgia however in a way that does not come across as stagnant, the way he deals with the story instead manages still to be timeless and universal. Those familiar with Guadagnino’s other work with notice again his obsession of swimming pools and themes of masculinity and sex.

The main thing to take away from Call Me By Your Name is that this film with stay with you. It has that rare thing of being uplifting yet heartbreaking. And despite ripping out your heart, you will not be able to stop thinking about it and will find your self longer to watch it again – quite like a lost love.