A Must See (For Most of Us)

Rating: 9/10 (21 March 2018)

This is the fourth (out of nine) of the 2018 Best Picture Oscar nominees I've seen and, so far the best of a very competitive field. It is also my favorite movie of the entire list of Oscar-nominated movies so far. Of course, expectations were already very high - both critical and audience reviews placed Call Me By Your Name in the top three or four movies of the year. But if I say that it meets expectations, I'm not being completely fair.
To say this is a 'coming of age' story is an accurate statement, but I don't think it goes far enough. As I watched this movie I became very much aware of just how important human contact is to all human beings - how touch, and sexual expression, are so much more than simple human experiences but rather seem to emerge from the core of what it means to be alive. The gut-wrenching challenges that arise in adolescence as we learn how to channel and interpret these needs and impulses is a key part, maybe one of the most essential parts, to growing up.
Call Me By Your Name does not let us down in the exploration of this critical human experience. And I think most of the credit needs to go to the young actor, Timothée Chalamet, an American who, when the movie was filmed was just 20 years old himself, barely into his own understanding of what this all means. He was nominated, but did not win, for Leading Actor this year. However I do not doubt that we will be seeing more of him in the near future. He appeared in 3 other films last year and has at least three more due out this year.
He plays 17 year-old Elio, who is spending a hot summer with his liberal academic parents in a Northern Italian villa surrounded by small town and pastoral scenes complete with swimming holes, calculated to encourage pleasure and self-paced discovery. He is a complex person with interests in music and history and, of course, his changing body. That he is confused and torn by everything going on is a given. He has ample opportunities to explore his budding sexuality and is hot to pursue a French girl, who is more than willing to explore with him.
But his interests turn with the arrival of Oliver, an American graduate student who has come to live and study with Elio's father who is a Greco-Roman scholar. Oliver is played by Armie Hammer. We've seen Hammer before in the Social Network and Lone Ranger. He is certainly attractive enough, and his role is vital to this movie. But I wouldn't argue that he out-performs Mr. Chalamet, by any means.
Oliver appears, at least initially, to be interested in the Italian women around him. But he also develops a fondness for Elio, attracted by his intelligence and honesty. Rapidly, this develops into a gay romance as Oliver and Elio spend increasing amounts of time, and intimacy with each other. Love scenes are not explicit, but are honest. They are not at all gratuitous, but display the profound physical basis for their emotional intimacy. (Oh, and BTW, you will never look at a peach the same way!)

Although audience reaction to the movie has been generally strongly favorable, there have been a number of very negative responses. Mostly these comments seem to be coming from people who are having a hard time with homosexuality. There are also people who claim that the movie's liberal supporters are being hypocritical by ignoring the Elio/Oliver age difference and the 'moral' issues involved there. However, these critiques are not significant, nor even relevant, when you understand that the age of consent in Italy is 14 (Elio is 17), and the relationship is voluntary at every step of its progression. Yes, Oliver is several years older than Elio, but if having sex with someone younger than yourself is a crime, then half the population is guilty in pretty much every sexual encounter. So, for me, the age thing is not an issue. (Us Americans tend to forget that a lot of the world is less prudish than we are.)
So that might leave as a potential problem, for some, the fact that this is a gay relationship. If that is a concern, then pay particular attention to the Father's talk with Elio very near the end of the movie. Although I don't particularly like the Father, I found his talk with his son to be the kind of conversation I wish my own Father could have had with me - I think the world would be a much better place if we all were more like these characters. In fact, for me, the movie provoked thoughts in my own mind that I've often had before - thoughts that argue that maybe we would all be a little emotionally more healthy and mature if we acknowledge that sex and reproduction are related, but not the same thing. And that touch and pleasure are such intrinsic and necessary parts of being human, that the gender of the partner is not really important.
Clearly Elio's relationship with Oliver is important to him. And, like so many relationships, the association between pleasure and pain becomes obvious and inevitable. The final scene in the movie, at the fireplace, is a tremendous statement of both Chalamet's acting skills, and of the power of love, and loss.
The movie won James Ivory the Oscar for Adapted Screenplay. (At 89, he is the oldest person to win an Oscar.). However, I can't say that I recognize any other movies he has written. Furthermore, it is difficult to evaluate the writing of an adapted screenplay unless you have read the source material, which I haven't. I can say that this movie was infinitely better than Logan, the other nominee in this category that I've seen.
It was also nominated for the song Mystery of Love, by Sufjan Stevens. I've been listening to that song as I write this review - it definitely works, especially "how much sorrow can I take".
Certain people shouldn't watch this movie - and you probably already know who you are. For the rest of you, this is a must see experience. One of the best of the year. 4.5 stars (out of 5).