Weird and overrated

Rating: 2/10 (4 March 2018)

I guess watching this film is fairly different for people who have read the book by now, but for me, this film is highly disappointing and, occasionally even disturbing. First of all, the cast for Oliver character is deeply problematic. Not because Army Hammer is a bad actor. On contrary, I think he is all right in general. However, the role simply does not suit him. Oliver should be just a few years older than Elio, while Hammer looks like (at least) 15 year older than a younger actor, and on the screen there is a striking encounter of a grown up, bored older man seducing a half his age ( and still under age) boy. That is a disturbing dimension of the film that probably does not strike in the book, but it attracts too much attention in the film, and looks disturbing.
Second, all the other characters in the film, apart from the main two, are so underdone, ridiculously superficial, with bad directing and bad acting, that it is very very difficult to imagine such a situation: everything is set up for two main characters to engage in the affair, nobody around them matters in any way, they can do whatever they want, and everybody is just a background to their situation. Well, that does not happen in real life ever. The most weird part is the act of Elio's parents, especially father. In general, both parents look like they enjoy bringing some pretty "assistants" to their house, practically inviting them for a holiday, with pretext that they need "a help with research", and then the whole family, friends and neighbors flirt with this assistant, waiting to see with whom he or she will be having an affair. That is how it looks on the basis of what is shown. During all this time with Elio's family, Oliver behaves as if he is on vacation, going around full of himself, showing his body, kind of flirting with Elio's parents, and everybody else, while his parents deeply approve everything he does or says, like he is a God, although he is supposed to be "doing some work", actually. The most ridiculous figure in it is Elio's father, who looks like a sad comedian who is dying to catch Oliver's smile, in spite of being a middle aged professor happily married with a beautiful wife. His wise words to Elio in the end confirm his own more then obvious homosexuality, and even his "envy" of his son affair with another man, which is really more then weird. Likewise, it sounds weird when the parents announce in the end that now they will be choosing a new "assistant"for the next summer who will be a woman, so we can clearly imagine an attractive older woman coming now to seduce Elio again, under the watch of his parents, of course. I am sorry, I am not really comfortable with all that, that all looks a bit sick, to tell the truth
In sum, film is more like a prayer to the lust and superficiality, adoration of pure form and vanity, than something deep. The boy is not coming of age in some authentic way, he is more being a good boy doing just what his parents expect from him, no matter how strange it is. There is no a real message in this film.