Beautiful, but lacking.

Rating: 6/10 (2 February 2018)

I enjoyed the movie, but found myself unmoved by it. I am a gay man, and cried in real life at the loss of a love as a young man, similarly to the way Timothee Chalamet does at the end of the movie. When the lights came up, the friend I saw it with, also gay, was in tears. For him, the movie dredged up powerful emotions connected to similar events from his life. So what didn't work for me?
As the movie progressed, I found the permission granted to grad student Oliver by Elio's parents to be just too precious to be believed. Everything seems to conspire to relieve Oliver of responsibility for indulging his passion for a vulnerable younger man, including Elio taking the first (and several) overt courtship steps. The story seemed to be clumsily and observably removing any potentially taboo elements in order to give Oliver permission for the romance. By doing so, it flattened the tension for me, and reduced the romance to a cliché. Even though the age of consent is lower in Italy, Elio is depicted with all the badges of minority; a student, living with his parents, inexperienced in his feelings toward men. Oliver is older, practiced at seduction with women at least, a grad student/ guest in the home. So a taboo relationship, or at least some unethical guest behavior is set up. But the parents' permission, broadcast long before the "father-son" talk scene, removes all the gates, flattening any dramatic tension. So the relationship could have been between two 17 year olds, or two 24 year olds, without the feint at taboo. I found myself laughing at the story as it unfolded. It wants to be both naughty and PC at the same time.
Similarly to how I thought about "Carol" with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara after seeing it; I wondered if this wasn't a same-sex romance and otherwise showed me two characters dealing with love and loss, would I care about these characters? Or I they only interesting because of the still-novel twist of same-sex love in a mainstream movie? On that score, I found Timothee Chalamet to be a good actor, channeling desire and loss, but Elio is not that interesting a character. And both Armie Hammer and Oliver struck me a pieces of preppie furniture with no inner life detectable.
Finally, even Michael Schulberg's father-son talk at the end struck me as the ending of an afterschool special or "a very special episode of Blossom." Of course, I wish someone had spoken to me that way when I was a teenager. maybe I'm resentful no one did. But I'm back to the word "precious".
The Italian scenery was lovely, however.