Call Me by Your Name (2017)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Peachy

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Luca Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name is a great deal more relaxed than his previous two efforts, the excellent I Am Love and A Bigger Splash; it recalls the talky, intellectual, but swoony summer romances of Eric Rohmer. It tells the story of seventeen year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet), who is summering with his family in Italy in 1983. His father (Michael Stuhlbarg), a professor of archaeology, takes on a student assistant, Oliver (Armie Hammer). Over the course of the summer, Elio and Oliver fall slowly in love. There are a few hiccups, but there's no judgment or punishment (Stuhlbarg gives an incredible, soft-spoken speech of tolerance and love to his son) and the only obstacle is that the end of summer approaches. The characters are smart and poetic, and seem to be fully occupying the spaces they're in; they're not just plunked in front of a backdrop. In one scene, Elio simply wanders around the huge, open-aired villa, touching things, looking out the window, just simply conveying a passage of time more than anything. James Ivory, the celebrated director of A Room with a View, Howards End, and The Remains of the Day, wrote the screenplay. It's a beautiful job of filmmaking.