Review -- Call Me by Your Name

Call Me by Your Name (2017) -- They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is all relative, they say. Perspective is everything.

However, there are some things, some works of art, that transcend the beholder's gaze. They seep into the soul and settle in, comfortable in their own radiance, spreading their glow all around the heart. They talk to audiences in the tongue of angels, luxuriating in their splendor, generous enough to share it with us. They refuse to leave and we do not ever want them to. Once accustomed to this kind of beauty, we find it impossible to let go.

Luca Guadagnino's adaptation of André Aciman's novel "Call Me by Your Name" is one such work of art. Weaving through its delicate story of first love are themes of LGBTQ acceptance, family and longing. This film is a rare gem.

Precocious teenager Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet) is spending the summer of 1983 with his parents in Italy. One day, a new research assistant arrives to work for Elio's academic father. Doctoral student Oliver (Armie Hammer) is friendly and self-aware, his extrovert nature clashing with Elio's thoughtfulness and his emphasis on his inner life. Quiet Elio soon finds himself slightly irritated by confident Oliver's wanton demeanor.

But Elio is intrigued by the new arrival. Through casual exchanges with Oliver, through occasional encounters with this man, he starts noticing things. He thinks back to their conversations and chastises himself for being "too harsh" to Oliver at one point. He calls him "traitor" when Oliver spends a night with a local girl. Slowly and surely, his feelings cross the line of friendship into something more, something deeper than he could ever have imagined...

Guadagnino's direction is tangible and observant. The director does not only train the lens on the narrative, but also on the subtle multitude of details. We are not only able to witness Elio and Oliver's summer. We can almost smell the sunshine, hear the creaking floors of Elio's family's rustic house and touch the grass that the lovers traverse. We can feel the water splashes in Elio's special nook and feel the warm haze of the lazy sunny days that always pass quicker than we can believe. The fragility of the romance, as well as the lack of acceptance in 1983, are both reflected in the fragility of the season -- the blazing days are sublime, a different realm of existence and a different plane of possibility. Elio and Oliver meet in secret and steal moments, two people who have found each other and who never want to let go, but who understand the reality coming at them like a freight train and realize that they can only fight it for so long.

The performances are one of the film's many special aspects. Chalamet is a revelation as Elio, a brooding teenager in his own world who falls deeply for the person he least expects. Hammer brings out qualms and vulnerability in Oliver, a man whose affection and confidence masks a well of self-doubt. Michael Stuhlbarg's delivery of the monologue -- the soliloquy of love and empathy coming directly from a caring parent's soul -- is nothing short of magical and Amira Casar lends an air of sympathetic presence to Annella, Elio's mother who seems to know her son better than she lets on.

Just like a lost summer, Call Me by Your Name is an ethereal breath, a tender moment that disappears for all eternity before we can catch it. Then again, it was never meant to be caught. In a world on the edge, it was meant to be a place of solace for everyone who has the pleasure to see it and who might be looking for themselves. It was meant to be an exquisite film with performances that linger in the viewer's mind for ages. And it succeeds on every level.     

10/10