PARK CITY – Ever since Oliver arrived at the summer residence of Elio Perlman’s parents in the Italian countryside, the 17-year-old has had something of a crush on the doctorate student seven years his senior. It’s 1983 and Oliver (Armie Hammer) has traveled to Europe for a six-week retreat to work with Elio’s father (Michael Struhlbarg), an esteemed professor specializing in Greco-Roman culture. Elio (Timothée Chalamet) misinterprets Oliver’s own initial courting, but his frustrated heart finally forces him to bravely reveal his feelings. This scene is one of the truly brilliant moments in Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me By Your Name” which had its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday night.
Guadagnino and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom chronicle the conversation in one extended shot that begins with Oliver and Elio on a bike trip to the local town square. Disembarking their bikes, they circle a war statue with Oliver walking around the farther side and Elio on the one closest to the camera’s eye. It’s framed so when Elio reveals he has been wanting to talk to Oliver about something the barrier around the monument forces Oliver to move further from away from Elio almost teasing the audience that he’ll reject his advances. After a heart-stopping beat he comes around the other side happily telegraphing that the feeling is mutual. The interaction becomes flirtatious when Elio takes a cigarette from Oliver and Guadagnino purposely keeps the camera distant enough so you see the attraction in their body movements and not their faces. Simply, Elio has fallen in love with Oliver and Guadagnino is going to make you fall in love along with him.
We quickly learn Elio is very lucky. He’s the son of an American father and an Italian mother (Amira Casar) who are both incredibly liberal for the time and may realize their son’s infatuation with Oliver before he wants to admit it (a significant departure from the 2007 book by André Aciman on which the film is based). He also cannot keep holding back his sexual desires waiting for Oliver to requite his love. While he pines over Oliver, writing in his notebook that he should have said one thing or another during their multitude of daily interactions, he begins a sexual relationship with Marzia (Esther Garrel), a local girl who warns him beforehand she doesn’t want to get hurt. That’s destined to happen from the moment the words come out of her mouth. While they hook up Elio keeps looking at his watch not wanting to be late for his secret rendezvous with Oliver later that night.
As he’s shown in his the last two films of what he describes as his “desire trilogy,” “I Am Love” and “A Bigger Splash,” Guadagnino is a sensual filmmaker who uses cinematic flourishes to let the narrative unfold at a pace he feels best suits the overall story (those flourishes are assisted by two new original songs by Sufjan Stevens). Guadagnino almost hypnotically lets the audience experience the dance of desire between Elio and Oliver in a masterful manner. When they are together he captures their affection in startling real ways. Guadagnino makes it explicit that their intimacy is more about love than animalistic release. No matter what your personal sexual orientation Guadagnino manages to find those intimate moments whether through a secretive touch, a fumbling first kiss, the stillness before the first move is made, or the eroticism of breaking the physical boundaries that form between all of us. It’s utterly beautiful.
Audiences would never believe it, of course, without the incredible performances of both leading men.
It’s truly hard to put into words what a revelation Chalamet is as Elio. The 21-year-old actor is naturally charismatic, but how he communicates Elio’s emotions throughout the picture is simply breathtaking. Even when he’s depicting Elio’s inevitable moments of teenage angst there it’s never false or mannered. He’s a rock of naturalism on Guadagnino’s gorgeous canvas.
Hammer, on the other hand, simply gives the performance of his career. On the surface Oliver is overly confident, but Hammer gives him depth that is hard to imagine was dictated in the script. After their first night together, a quiet Elio seems to have grown emotionally cold as many who are still uncomfortable with intimacy can react. The look of pained concern on Hammer’s face communicates everything going on in Oliver’s mind without a single word being said. And as much as the film is from Elio’s perspective, Hammer surprisingly makes you root for Oliver’s happiness too.
While there have been some changes in the adaptation from the novel, Guadagnino and co-screenwriters James Ivory and Walter Fasso keep the story intact up too a point. Unlike the book, the movie does not tell these characters stories over a 20-year span. It also changes the parents’ reaction to the affair that leads to a touching but perhaps slightly overlong scene of fatherly love and unsolicited life advice.
That slight quibble aside, Guadagnino’s achievement is a historic landmark for gay male characters in a film of this caliber. Outside of a few short moments in Ismail Merchant and James Ivory’s “Maurice,” and Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain,” the love and intimacy between two male characters has never truly felt this real or emotionally heartbreaking in a theatrical context. It’s almost revolutionary. It’s cinematic art and it will want you to feel as loved as Elio and Oliver feel, even if it’s fleeting. [A]
“Call Me By Your Name” was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics before the festival and should hit theaters sometime this year.
Click here for our complete coverage from the 2017 Sundance Film Festival