Review: Call Me By Your Name (2017)

My rating	IMDb		Rotten Tomatoes
	Critics	Audience	Critics	Audience
8/10	93/100	8.4/10	96%	88%

Numbers obtained from IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes on January 8, 2018.

In the summer of 1983 in Northern Italy, 17-year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) is a little bored. Sure he has his friends and books to read, but something is missing. Oliver (Armie Hammer), a 24-year-old American scholar, arrives to spend 6 weeks in his house, helping his father. At first, Elio is not immediately impressed by the newcomer, but his feelings start to change.

That’s the beginning of Call Me By Your Name, based on the book written by André Aciman. It is one of those films with a slow pace, to show the audience step by step of their routines, as well as Elio’s realization that he is developing stronger feelings towards Oliver. In fact, they are together for the first time almost one hour after the movie had started.

Elio plays piano and guitar, reads a lot, goes out with friends, but he cannot avoid the fact that his feelings for Oliver are growing into something he had never felt before. So the audience is invited into Elio’s world of discovering and accepting his feelings.

Timothée Chalamet is absolutely magnificent as Elio, capturing all the nuances of a teenager falling in love for the first time. There are also more physical scenes, including one involving a peach (yes, the fruit), that show Elio’s journey to acceptance.

The two most touching scenes, however, appear towards the end of the film. Without giving too anything away, Michael Stuhlbarg‘s monologue, who plays Elio’s father, is probably one of the most beautiful speeches in film in 2017. The other scene is actually the very last one, as the final credits roll. That would be enough evidence to show how good Timothée is in the role.

Even though “coming of age” stories are a trend nowadays, this one stands precisely for its subtleness and beauty – an timelessness.