Review: Call Me By Your Name

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Attentive to detail, composed of gorgeous visual imagery, patient in execution and romantically melancholy, Luca Guadagnino's "Call Me By Your Name" is not only the best film to date by the Italian director, whose previous work includes "I Am Love" and "A Bigger Splash," but one of the most tantalizing of this year so far.

Set in 1983 in a rustic area of Northern Italy, the picture follows the story of 17-year-old Elio (Timothee Chalamet in a great performance), who is spending the summer with his father (Michael Stuhlbarg), a renowned professor of Greco-Roman culture, and mother (Amira Casar), a translator, in their seasonal home. Elio often switches back and forth flawlessly between speaking English, French and Italian and knows his way around a piano. However, the cultured and sophisticated persona that he likes to give off masks his unease regarding other things - namely, his sexuality and still existing virginity.

A doctoral student from New England named Oliver (Armie Hammer) arrives for a summer internship and Elio is, at first, put off by the mysterious American, who often fails to join the family for dinner and frequently bids adieu with a seemingly dismissive "later!" But from their first meeting, there is obvious chemistry between the youth and more experienced - but also secretly awkward - older man.

If you're guessing that "Call Me By Your Name" is one in a long line of films about a young person learning the ways of the world, shedding their innocence and becoming wiser in the process, well, you'd be correct. But as in all things - especially movies - the how is often more important than the what or why. This is a gorgeously rendered film, from its terrific performances and beautiful cinematography - particularly in the manner in which natural light often plays across a shadowed room or the faces of its characters - to the terrific script by James Ivory and excellent use of music - including the Psychedelic Furs and Sufjan Stevens.

There are several sex scenes in the film - involving the two aforementioned lovers as well as Elio's brief fling with a French girl - and they are all tastefully erotic. Each one is also utilized to deepen the relationships of the various characters, rather than simply put bodies on display. However, there's a scene involving a peach that I'd imagine nobody will forget any time soon.

There's an excellent sequence near the film's end during which Stuhlbarg's character puts into words the overall thematic crux of the picture and it's a lovely moment. Often, when a director literally spells out what they are trying to say - rather than showing - it's a bad sign. But in this case, the scene during which Elio's father talks to him about friendships and love that can transform one's life is, perhaps, this film's finest moment.

The movie ends on a hauntingly melancholic note that anyone could see coming from a mile away. The thing that makes the relationship between Elio and Oliver so poignant all along is that it's obviously doomed to be fleeting. Guadagnino culminates the picture with a long-held shot of Elio's face after he has received a piece of news that is shattering in its obviousness. But it's not a depressing way to end the film. Just around the corners of Elio's mouth a smile can be glimpsed. This is a film about an experience that shape's a person's life - and it's one that has been made with great craft and care. I'd highly recommend it.