Pretty solid watch, succeeds in most areas

Rating: 6/10 (12 March 2018)

"Call Me by Your Name" is a new movie that is a collaboration between no less than four countries and it is in five languages, but mostly English. At 2 hours 15 minutes, it is indeed a very long film, but feels like it's shorter and that it basically never drags sure speaks in favor of this work. It was nominated for four Oscars this year (including Best Picture) and won one. Besides, it was one of the big awards players this season on many other ceremonies too. The director is Luca Guadagnino and the film won the Oscar for its screenplay that was written based on a novel by James Ivory, a prolific director himself decades ago and this award really is the icing on the cake of his long career. The film may be a star-making performance for lead actor Timothée Chalamet (career year for him, he's in Lady Bird too among others) and he was really good most of the time, even if I am not entirely sure if it was good enough for an Oscar nomination. He succeeds with his charm for sure and with the fact that he is in virtually every scene of the film from start to finish. It is the story of a young man who falls in love with his father's new assistant, so this is a gay-themed movie for the most part and the fact that the two cannot live out their dedication to each other in public makes things very complicated, especially as it is the experience of first love for the protagonist and here we are talking about love, a deeper sensual feeling, not just sexual attraction. Elio is a boy who really can have all the girls and also has a pretty attractive one and enjoys having sex with her too. I think besides the character study and coming-of-age component, the one area where the film really succeeds is the joie de vivre, the dolce vita. You really want to be there with the characters in Italy and enjoy the delicacies and the nature and it fits in extremely well with the sensuality of the whole story. What else? Oh yeah, you see how well the film works because you will never feel envy or jealousy watching this one. the central character may be a rich kid, but it's never at all about rich people problems etc. The calling one's name component is one that is not too easy to appreciate. There is an ounce of pretentiousness to it to be honest, especially when they say each other's names at the very end during the phone conversation. But it is not a negative deal breaker. There are perspectives from which you can like this too.
Another thing I need to say is that I really liked Michael Stuhlbarg here. While everybody is complaining about Armie Hammer being snubbed at the Oscars (and yes he was good for sure too), I think that Stuhlbarg gives such a simple, effortless and restrained performance here that I just could not look away during all his scenes. The scene at the ending with his confession to his son is a definite contender for very best scene of the year. Man he was so good in this one, really touching and easily the best moment of the entire movie and that says quite something. The closing credits rolling in with the tears rolling was a nice way to end the film too and it worked pretty well. And the Oscar-nominated song fits the film perfectly too in tone and style and I would have been very fine with it taking home the grand prize, even if the one from Coco wasn't too shabby either. All in all, I would not say that CMbYN is one of the very best films of the year, but it has some very good moments for sure and there is no hesitation when it comes to my decision that I give this one a thumbs-up. Sure Chalamet is far from the level of Ledger in Brokeback Mountain and the film as a whole is weaker too, but he is also way younger still, so it is all good. I definitely think you should check this one out and if it is too slow for you, then you can still stop watching. It is certainly not a film for everybody and scenes like the jerking-off on one occasion may be a bit irritating to some, but these moments when the film does not feel too realistic are really not too frequent and almost everything else about these almost 2 hours and 15 minutes is pretty swell. Go see it.