Dry, depressing and drawn out

Rating: 5/10 (28 August 2018)

Considered a frontrunner at the 2018 Academy Awards, Luca Guadagnino's 'Call Me By Your Name' gained attention as a story of "young, forbidden love."
Propped up by a relative newcomer (Timothee Chalamet) and an otherwise generic mactor (Armie Hammer), 'Name' takes viewers through a summer of building tension in the Italian countryside, where the two leads form a bond while Hammer's Oliver boards with his professor (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his family to work between semesters. It's not long before Chalamet's Elio realizes his feelings for the college student, and not much longer before he realizes the feeling is mutual.
While the plot is supposed to make for some form of scandal or controversy, 'Name' is more boring than anything. While the scenery is beautiful, as is the constant Italian that is spoken among the cast, and the music that weaves the scenes together (including some pretty impressive piano playing), there are plenty of shortcomings here. For one, the acting is stale. While Chalamet has a few scenes that are hard-hitting (the fireplace scene during the credits comes to mind), the dialogue between the two leads is not well written by any means. As for the long, droning soliloquy by Elio's father, Mr. Perlman, at the conclusion of the film - while the content is powerful and has a good message, the way it's written and delivered makes it more awkward than anything else.
There are also too many instances where we're reminded that the producers did everything they could try to make it feel like the 80s...to the point where they tried too hard and it instead feels like a cheap, formulaic blast-from-the-past romantic foreign film.
'Call Me By Your Name' made a lot of noise during its run, and clearly has found itself fans. But when you remove the outer apricot flesh to get to its core, it's a recycled story that is not as unique as some may think.