2 hour equivalent of an Instagram brunch story

Rating: 1/10 (1 October 2017)

If you have ever stumbled upon an Insta story of a brunch table with a polo shirt lightly hanged on the brim of the chair, a visibly used Penguin edition of a Thomas Mann roman and a moleskin notebook full of pretentious calligraphy, all serving as props, welcome to Guadanino's world. The characters are moving advertisements of Polo and Lacoste who carry books they have never read as medals, cite snippets of poets they never got and surround themselves in a world of art to boost their shallow egos. Every character of this film is a poor copy of a real life personality: see the professor who is a more handsome, gay friendly version of Umberto Eco. Under all this stylization lies nothing. All the spontaneous action feels terribly staged and you can taste a fear in the air. The fear that if an actor misses one step of this mind numbing choreography, the whole world will crumble. Don't ask me to think highly of a director who dedicates a whole scene to advertise espresso.