Call Me By Your Name takes us to Northern Italy in 1983 as Elio (Timothée Chalamet) spends the summer with his father (Michael Stuhlbarg) and mother (Amira Casar) as his father’s research assistant Oliver (Armie Hammer) comes to work for six weeks at their seasonal home. While Oliver stays with the family, Elio develops a crush on him and experiences a sexual awakening with which he must cope.
Call Me By Your Name is a quiet, understated film about self-discovery, teenage infatuation, and the emotional spectrum of love. Elio is a young man who becomes intrigued by the presence of Oliver and thus, begins to experience self-actualization about who he is. He begins to cope with the confusion by resenting Oliver and how he makes him feel but it quickly develops into a crush. This feeling of desire and conflict about his feelings are common problems for every teen but having them for someone of the same sex is especially complicated. Elio struggles with this until Oliver guides him through it. This fits with the film’s theme of exploration and the costs associated with it, encapsulated through a quote from a poem where a knight wonders whether it is better to “speak or die.” As we are all familiar with, “speaking” on your status as a homosexual in society comes at great risk, even in today’s supposedly freer and more accepting times. But to not do so, and let the pain of living a lie and carrying with you a concealed identity, can feel like a living death. Elio’s lashing out at everyone around him in the beginning of the film due to Oliver’s presence and the feelings it creates within him are just a glance at how life in the closet has been described by gay men and women and the hurt it causes in their lives. Many do not have the luxury of encountering such a healthy introduction into a life of being out and proud as Elio experiences to an extent in this film but, his journey of self-discovery as presented here does provide an ideal for which our society should hope to strive.
Sometimes though, self discovery does come at a cost. In finding ourselves, sometimes others are left behind. While dealing with his feelings for Oliver, Elio also embarks on a relationship with a local girl named Marzia (Esther Garrel). The two spend a lot of time together and he even loses his virginity with her. However, after finally crossing the threshold from crush to relationship with Oliver, Elio abruptly stops speaking to Marzia, breaking her heart in the process. Developing into who we are meant to be can often include having to separate ourselves from others we’ve met along the way in our journey, sometimes at devastating consequence. This is particularly true in love and the film eloquently makes this point through the relationship between Elio and Marzia.
The resulting love affair is an interesting examination of a phenomenon that was more common during its 1980s setting; older gay men helping to usher younger ones into their sexual awakening. It’s a complicated issue to analyze in a modern context, where romantic relations between teenagers and older people are strictly verboten and acceptance of homosexuality has made tremendous strides. As I’ve come to understand from conversations with older gay men, in the past when there were no LGBT high school clubs and out classmates to explore with, younger gay men were often left to find themselves through relationships with older men, free from the fear and risk of dealing with their peers in circumstances and environments that were more volatile and uncertain. Being able to have a relationship where you could come to terms with and develop your sexuality in comfort may be something that straight people take for granted and was harder for young gay in more closed minded times. Older men like Oliver became needed refuges for many of these young gay men and it makes the resulting relationships less black and white than how one would normally view a relationship between a teen and older person. Even in this film, the relationship between Elio and Oliver doesn’t feel dirty or wrong despite the discrepancy in age and experience. We’re made to feel as if they’re guiding each other through their feelings rather than the younger love interest being taken advantage of.
The film also makes a statement about dealing with lost love and the pain that accompanies it. In a moving, poignant scene, Elio’s father reveals that he has known of the love affair and expresses his support of the special bond the two shared. In advising his son through his heartbreak, he tells him not to close himself off and in shedding the pain, lose the joy that also came with the relationship. This moment is notable for its true to life explanation of why pain and love are inextricably linked, but also of how accepting and open-minded Elio’s father is of his relationship with Oliver and his only son’s sexuality.
Timothée Chalamet is superb in his turn as Elio, bringing a realistic, complex portrayal of a young person struggling to find themselves and deal with love and all of its complications for the first time. Armie Hammer is equally convincing as an older man guiding a younger, confused man through his journey through life while also coping with his own struggle to understand his feelings and desire. Michael Stuhlbarg has what could be the most well acted scene in the film with the aforementioned heart to heart with his son about his knowledge of the relationship with his student and the guide for coping with the complexity of loving another human being. Being such a quiet film, Call Me By Your Name calls on its actors to give their best performances in order to keep the audience engaged and its stars definitely all deliver.
Call Me By Your Name is a sweet, slow burning film about falling in love for the first time while finding out who exactly you are. The performances from the actors in the film are just as quietly powerful and the film itself and the issues that it explores are interesting to contemplate and will help many who view the film either deal with their own similar experiences, or put the ones that they have already had into greater focus.
Image: Sony Pictures Classics
