Few Films will ever reach that emotional territory that leaves an imprint on your heart forever. Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Be My Your Name after making a splash on the Festival circuit, is primed exactly to do this.
Adapted from André Aciman‘s Novel of the same name, this Film is a tale of first love capturing it like a metaphorical peach ripe for the picking, that one beautiful fleeting moment of falling head over heels in love with someone for the first time. 17-year-old American-Italian student Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and his parents (Michael Stuhlbarg and Amira Casar) host an American student named Oliver (Armie Hammer) at their home in northern Italy in the summer of ’83. Bonding over their heritage and sexuality, the two despite a bit of tension and struggle in finding their own identities, are enamored by one another. With Summer’s end and Oliver‘s impending return to America always in the background, we witness a beautiful bond between these two young men and where it takes them to.
Guadagnino has a knack for storytelling as seen in recent Films like I am Love and A Bigger Splash, which time and again has gotten us into a juicy, tangled mess. On that same token, we find ourselves not quite ever wanting to leave as we become hypnotized by the magnificence of Sayombhu Mukdeeprom‘s cinematography and the complicated emotions of our two leads. Above this, the largely synthy and moody ’80s Soundtrack fueled by The Psychedelic Furs’ Love My Way in itself is a character within the Film, equally important in transporting us into the moment.
Chalamet, a fresh face who has been honing his craft for several years on Television (Homeland, Royal Pains), delivers a major breakthrough performance that is daring and enchanting. He disappears completely into Elio and captures his frightening intelligence and at once a burning curiosity and naïveté about the world and love. Hammer, while having delivered some fine work in his career already, does outstanding work as the scholarly Oliver, never revealing too much and this perhaps has us falling for him much like Elio. Stuhlbarg saves the best for last in a pivotal moment late in the Film that is powerful and sobering.
The buzz surrounding CALL ME BY YOUR NAME truly is warranted and cannot be missed amidst the rush of Awards Season contenders to surface of late. It captures beautifully the intoxicatingly-sweet nectar that is falling in love the first time and also the inconsolable pain of having your heart broken the first time.
Mongrel Media release CALL ME BY YOUR NAME Friday, December 15, 2017 in Toronto. More cities to follow.
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