Immersive

Rating: 10/10 (11 January 2018)

Call Me by Your Name stars Timothee Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg and Amira Casar, and is directed by Luca Guadagnino, who brought us 2015's A Bigger Splash, which is in many ways a bit uneven in terms of tone and pacing, but certainly not inadequate. He also directed I Am Love, which I haven't seen, but hear great things.
Set in 1983, it tells the story of 17-year-old Italian-American-intellectual Elio, (Chalamet), whose family regularly visits their 17th century villa during the summer in Northern Italy for his father's (Stuhlbarg) archaeological research, involving the salvation of ancient sculpturing. Along comes mid- twenty-year-old grad student Oliver (Hammer), who comes to spend the summer to assist with Elio's father's research. Though Elio at first slightly despises Oliver's "over-confidence", the two grow closer and closer, and Elio's cultured, sophisticated, yet naive and hormonal nature coupled with Oliver's higher maturity and life experience creates some of the most emotionally charged and truly charming chemistry that I have seen on film in a long time.
I think what makes Call Me by Your Name so special is that it's one of the most immersive movies ever put to cinema. Watching it feels authentically like you're on a holiday in the summer of Northern Italy in a way that trashier American romance films in which the central characters travel abroad on holidays cannot capture.
This is a movie that isn't afraid to just meander and lull about, and just generally chillax. It doesn't concern itself so much on plot, but more on atmosphere, environment and performance. By golly, it would be fundamentally unfair for both Timethee Chalamet and Armie Hammer to not both win best lead actor simultaneously for this one film, but alas, also impossible. I would also be surprised if Stuhlbarg doesn't get a nom here for supporting. But the lack of traditional storytelling beats, such as conflicts and turning points etc etc only work in the film's favour to further emphasise the sense of environment and love and passion, and the sense of it feeling so very much like real life, which unlike a screenplay, isn't all structured accordingly and specifically. Real life is messy and spontaneous and instinctive, just like this movie.
The immense level of confidence brought to the screen by Guadagnino in collaboration with his actors make this one of the most beautiful films of the year, maybe even of all time. This is also quite a long film, and in many ways it feels long and meandering, also a bit like real life, which is not a bad thing at all, and it works for what the film is going for.
This will draw a lot of comparison's with 2016's Moonlight, mainly due to it being an auteur piece of awards-caliber filmmaking that happens to be about being gay. However, I will say I think Moonlight has the slight edge, possibly due to it having distinct conflict within, but also because I found it connected with me on a slightly deeper more personal and relatable level, despite me being a straight dude. Other teensy flaws are that even though the movie feels wonderfully real, there is some dialogue which isn't as realistic as the film in which it's contained, where it doesn't quite feel like how people talk in real life, which is the complete opposite case with Moonlight.
But Call Me by Your Name is an absolute master work, there's still several 2017 Oscar contenders I'm yet to see, but right now it stands as my favourite film of the year, it's a film that you need to just sit back, relax, get comfortable and just go with it, become involved with it, let it literally wash over you, take it in, and it will hit anyone and everyone who's ever been through, or happens to be going through either hormonal stages or finding first love. On many occasions throughout, some quite early on, I was having to fight breaking down into fits of sobbing and heaving, and when the power of cinema can do that on a genuine level, it's two thumbs up and no less than a 9.5/10