Elio and Oliver

Rating: 8/10 (21 March 2018)

James Ivory's screenplay for Call Me By Your Name brought home Oscar gold for
the film. It's a beautiful gay love story of two young men set and photographed
beautifully in the 80s in Northern Italy. The scenery alone is guaranteed to
bring out any romance in your soul.
Professor Michael Stulberg and wife Amiri Cesar have invited a young teaching
assistant Armie Hammer to live with them and work on some excavations of
recent artifacts. Living with them is their most precocious and brilliant 17
year old son Timothee Chalamet who got an Oscar nomination as Best Actor.
The two of them have and do explore the opposite sex, but before the summer
is out they can't deny the physical attraction.
Chalamet is as another reviewer said just completely beyond perfection. He's
the ideal twink boy who might have been your first crush. He's fortunate he
comes from educated parents who recognize what he is and let him go his own
way. How insightful they are we find out at the end.
The rest of the characters outside of these four are as much background as the
scenery in northern Italy where the story takes place. The story just lasers right in on the family quartet. Watching the family dynamic as the parents
relate to Chalamet you also get sad when you realize how many uneducated
ones who were brought up to hate and fear gay crush the spirit of the Chalamets they bring into this world.
The story ends on a sad note, but it also leaves open the plot elements for the
sequel already in the works.
Call Me By Your Name also got nominated for Best Picture and for Best Original Song. It certainly has joined the pantheon of great gay cinema. I
hope the sequel is just as good.