Monday, January 29, 2018

Call Me by Your Name

I don’t usually consider the hypothetical when writing film reviews, but I think it may be useful in writing about Call Me by Your Name.  What if this was a story about a 17 year old boy attracted to a 24 year old woman, and the ensuing relationship, with an emphasis on their sexual exploits?  What if everything else about the film was exactly the same?  Call Me by Your Name takes place in an idyllic Italian countryside, circa 1983; which means things are just modern enough to be familiar, but retro enough to suggest a simpler time.   I especially found the scenes depicting bicycle rides to ring true to my ‘80s experience; whatever happened to kids on bikes?  The 17 year old boy is played by Timothée Chalamet, who delivers an excellent performance as a boy who is nurtured and loved by his parents, and is acutely self-aware.  Films that allow their characters to feel and think are rare, because it so often clashes with the plot.   The director, Luca Guadagnino employs an unobtrusive filmmaking style, which allows for an intimate view of his characters.  This approach, combined with exemplary acting is effective in conveying to the audience what is happening onscreen between the characters, and what is motivating them.  

If we stay with my hypothetical film premise, then I’d most likely say that this was a beautiful film; I only wish that filmmakers would stop promoting sex outside marriage, and wouldn’t it have been wonderful if the film could have treated a platonic relationship so gracefully.  Maybe I would have said that, honestly I probably wouldn’t have batted an eye at a heterosexual relationship.

Leaving the hypothetical behind, it should be said that Call Me by Your Name is about a 17 year old boy who is attracted to a 24 year old man, and the ensuing relationship, with an emphasis on their sexual exploits.  All the qualities I mentioned before hold true, this is a masterfully crafted film that contains scenes of beauty and honest depictions of humanity.  It is clear that the filmmakers intended this as a celebration of a homosexual relationship; I found it to work quite well as tragic exploration of our fallen nature.   The boy’s father, played by Michael Stuhlbarg* delivers a powerful monologue towards the film’s close, basically an “it is better to have loved and lost” speech tailored to fit as advice from a father to his son.   It is sad when good intentions have such devastating consequences.


*Michael Stuhlbarg also appeared in the recently reviewed The Shape of Water, playing a character who was called-out by Focus on the Family as a “negative element” because he depicted a “foreign spy”.  I assume that this made the review because of the 9th Commandment, but I hope that it was meant as a joke.

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