Miles of Movies

                                                                                                       Call Me By Your Name is a film about Elio                                                                                                            (Timothee Chalamet), a teenager living in Italy with                                                                                                  his family. His father (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a                                                                                                              professor of archaeology and takes on Oliver (Armie                                                                                                Hammer) as a graduate student to help him with his                                                                                                research. Elio and Oliver don’t initially get along                                                                                                        because their personalities are so different, but they                                                                                                soon learn that they have more in common than                                                                                                      they previously thought.

                                                                                                     This film features a lot of gorgeous Italy,                                                                                                              beautiful lighting, scenes of people jumping into lakes, and really long shots. It’s the atmosphere that I think will be remembered most from this film. Italy is on full display and practically plays a character in the film. Everyone bikes everywhere and everyone relaxes by swimming out in the open. There are so many scenes that involve something mentioned above, so much so that it gets repetitive. Elio’s life is fairly boring until Oliver comes along and you understand why his life changes. So when Elio starts to open up a little bit more to Oliver, you genuinely see this as a significant change in his routine life and personality.

        The performances in this film really sell the relationship that develops and the real lessons that come from what happens in the short time Elio and Oliver are together. Armie Hammer is fine in his role but Timothee Chalamet is the real standout since his character is the central one given the most depth. Look out for his final scene that plays during the credits to see how good he really is. And even though he is the standout, Michael Stuhlbarg carries perhaps the most important and impactful scene in the entire movie as he talks one-on-one to Elio, his son.

         As I said, this film is gorgeous to look at and features some amazing performances. It is, however, very long and very repetitive, especially in the first half. It really does take a while to get going when it almost certainly didn’t need to. I would still definitely recommend this movie, but know that it’s going to be long.