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Armie Hammer & Timothée Chalamet find love in Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Aloysius J. Gleek:
It must be said that Call Me by Your Name is a triumph in every regard. Michael Stuhlbarg’s role as Elio’s father isn’t necessarily a large role in terms of screentime, but he delivers a monologue towards the end of the film that felt like it made time stop. Luca Guadagnino and James Ivory’s script is measured and tight; thoughtful and delicate. Every inch of this movie is expertly crafted, right down to the stunning final shot. It’s at once a universal story of young love and a relatable, emotional story of a homosexual awakening. In that regard it’s a tremendous love story period, but also a winning entry in the legion of queer cinema.
http://collider.com/call-me-by-your-name-review/
Sundance 2017
Call Me by Your Name
Sundance 2017 Review
Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet
Astound in Sensual Triumph
by ADAM CHITWOOD
Monday 23 January 2017
Days filled with swimming, reading, and eating fresh fruit ... Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg and Armie Hammer in Call Me by Your Name
In my four years attending the Sundance Film Festival, I’m not sure I’ve seen anything as purely rapturous as Call Me by Your Name. The new feature film from I Am Love and A Bigger Splash filmmaker Luca Guadagnino chronicles a summer romance that blossoms between a young boy and a visitor in northern Italy, and by the film’s end it solidifies its place as one of the queer cinema greats alongside Carol, Brokeback Mountain, and Moonlight. The film is a tremendously sensual, hypnotic coming of age/coming out tale of first love. Anchored by a phenomenal breakout performance from Timothée Chalamet, Armie Hammer’s best work yet, and masterful craftsmanship, Call Me by Your Name is an instant addition to the best romances of the 21st century.
Based on the book of the same name by André Aciman, the film takes place in 1983 in Northern Italy, where a 17-year-old boy named Elio is spending the summer in his family’s 17th century villa. His father (Michael Stuhlbarg), a professor of Greco-Roman culture, enlists a research assistant named Oliver (Hammer) to come and spend the summer with his family. Elio is transfixed by Oliver at first sight, but approaches the handsome American warily, keeping him at arm’s length. As the summer continues and Elio and Oliver play a game of chicken, daring one another to make the first romantic overture, the two finally give into their feelings and spark a romance that is passionate, playful, and pure.
Chalamet is nothing short of a revelation as Elio. The actor is probably best known for his work on Homeland or for a brief role in Interstellar, but this is one of the biggest breakthrough performances in recent memory. He imbues Elio with complicated layers—a confident exterior; a precocious charm; a fearful undercurrent. All of these shine through and more and he’s so good in the role that at first you even doubt whether he actually likes Oliver. Of course he’s simply preparing himself for rejection by throwing out the first jabs, but this results in a relationship that is at first delightfully contentious, then playfully so before turning into full on flirtation.
But as a closeted 17-year-old, Elio is still working out his feelings by losing his virginity to a local Italian girl who has the hots for him. Their relationship never comes off as phony, more as an exploration, and there’s a ticking clock plot point towards the end of the film that raises the stakes in hilariously sexy fashion.
As the relationship between Elio and Oliver becomes physical, the film really digs into this as a first love story and a coming out story. Love is universal, so the feelings between Elio and Oliver are the same feelings felt by all, but it’s nice that Guadagnino doesn’t ignore the elephant in the room: that Elio and Oliver’s sexuality is a thing to be hidden at that point in time. There’s a reason their relationship began so contentiously, and Oliver makes reference early in the film that he’s “been good” so far and doesn’t want to do anything to mess that up. It’s heartbreaking, really, to see Elio so miserable at the start of the film, surrounded by such beauty.
But this is no misery porn. The teasing that goes on between the two characters is magnificently handled by Guadagnino, who keeps a playful hand on the proceedings so as not to drown the film in self-serious romance. Summer flings are fun! So are first loves. And while this does blossom into something deeply felt, the summer season and Italian setting add a touch of lightheartedness to the scenes. Moreover, Guadagnino’s focus on sensuality over sexuality imbues the film with a romp vibe with an undeniable allure. One imagines that a more explicit or erotic version of the film would have downplayed how deeply felt the emotions are between Oliver and Elio.
Gorgeously shot by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (Arabian Nights ), this is a film that you just want to soak up. The Italian scenery is milked for all its worth, and the days filled with swimming, reading, and eating fresh fruit are divine. But the secret weapon to immersing audiences into the world of Call Me by Your Name is some incredible sound design. The footsteps on the gravel roads, the creaking floors in the ancient villa—you not only see this world, you feel it. That only allows the audience to fall deeper into the film’s trance, becoming infatuated with the romance between Elio and Oliver.
It must be said that Call Me by Your Name is a triumph in every regard. Stuhlbarg’s role as Elio’s father isn’t necessarily a large role in terms of screentime, but he delivers a monologue towards the end of the film that felt like it made time stop. Guadagnino and James Ivory’s script is measured and tight; thoughtful and delicate. Every inch of this movie is expertly crafted, right down to the stunning final shot. It’s at once a universal story of young love and a relatable, emotional story of a homosexual awakening. In that regard it’s a tremendous love story period, but also a winning entry in the legion of queer cinema.
Rating: A
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Overlaying Oliver (Armie Hammer) and Elio (Timothée Chalamet)'s slow-motion courtship is Oliver’s study of classical archaeology, which visually echoes his attraction to Elio, who looks like a Greek bronze statue come to life — delicate aquiline nose, bedroom eyes under a heavy brow and hair just ever-so-slightly mussed. Several times in the film we see him draped across a sofa, the Barberini Faun in a Talking Heads T-shirt, Elio as a gay Pygmalion in reverse.
https://mic.com/articles/168595/berlinale-review-call-me-by-your-name-is-a-portrait-of-homosexual-intimacy-that-honors-the-book
BERLINALE 2017 Review
Call Me by Your Name
is a portrait of homosexual intimacy that honors the book
by John Sherman
@_john_sherman
Published Feb. 14, 2017
"--as if they’re daring you to desire them." ... Michael Stuhlbarg, Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer in Call Me by Your Name
BERLIN -- Call Me by Your Name, based on the 2007 novel of the same title by André Aciman, premiered at Sundance earlier this year, and played this week at the Berlinale to eager crowds.
Set "somewhere in northern Italy" in 1983, the story takes place at the estate of Professor Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his wife, Annella (Amira Casar), who host a graduate student as a research assistant each summer. Oliver, portrayed by Armie Hammer, is an American student who not only charms the Perlmans, but catches the eye of their 17-year-old son Elio, played by Timothée Chalamet. Hammer stretches the imagination playing a 20-something, particularly in contrast to Chalamet’s lithe, nearly hairless figure (he’s 21 playing 17 but looks even younger) — still, the physical chemistry between them is electric.
Adapting any novel into a film is a unique challenge, as it often leaves viewers and readers at odds, but director Luca Guadagnino’s film achieves much of the spirit that runs through André Aciman’s novel. It may seem tautological to say so about a film based on a book, but Call Me by Your Name is an intensely literary film. The novel drips with the Western intellectual tradition, a fact the film neither loses sight of nor apologizes for — its dialogue is in three languages (in order of appearance: French, English and Italian), and its characters are as conversant in Hellenistic statuary and classical composers as they are 20th-century painting and 1980s pop music. The breadth of this story, from the rich art-historical imagery to the bookshelves' worth of literary reference behind every conversation, has not been diminished in its translation from book to film.
But the literary depth of Call Me by Your Name is set dressing to the soul of the story, which is the relationship between Elio and Oliver. Neither Aciman nor Guadagnino is openly queer — Aciman is married to a woman and Guadagnino has not publicly discussed his orientation [FYI, this is not correct. According to wikipedia, Guadagnino is gay, and in the NYT Sunday Weekend article (August 1 2016), Guadagnino says he lives with a partner who is a filmmaker, although the partner's name is not mentioned--although I have an idea who!--JG.] — but each creates a tender portrait of a relationship between two men who cannot initially admit their affection, neither to one another nor to themselves. Both film and novel capture the unbearable privacy of closeted desire, which proceeds by degrees — a touch, a look, a certain preference that, by design, can be neither quantified nor directly confronted — the hesitant physicality between men who can’t be certain that the other won’t turn and run, or worse. When this tension finally breaks, the emotional and physical release of freedom — freedom to kiss, even simply to stare — is like finally breathing.
The delicacy of this dance is highlighted by interactions Oliver and Elio have with women, whom they pursue directly and forcefully — Elio in order to prove something, at least in part; Oliver perhaps out of a more genuine interest. Once Elio and Oliver finally kiss, the women are reduced to little more than interruptions.
Overlaying Oliver and Elio’s slow-motion courtship is Oliver’s study of classical archaeology, which visually echoes his attraction to Elio, who looks like a Greek bronze statue come to life — delicate aquiline nose, bedroom eyes under a heavy brow and hair just ever-so-slightly mussed. Several times in the film we see him draped across a sofa, the Barberini Faun in a Talking Heads T-shirt, Elio as a gay Pygmalion in reverse.
The film's title sequence features full-color slide images of classical Greek statuary, busts and chests and bodies of idealized young men, an inscrutable smile on every face, hair carved into artful tousles; any one of them could have been carved after Elio. In a scene between Oliver and Elio's father, cataloguing slides of bronze statuary, Elio's father comments on the inviting curvature of the male figures, saying it is "as if they’re daring you to desire them." Oliver gazes at the slides knowingly.
But for all the acceptance of Elio's parents — his mother seems at times to encourage their relationship, and his father makes clear he understands the weight of their affection for one another — Elio and Oliver are free only in darkness, and in private. Even after acknowledging their mutual attraction, in daylight and in public they are always in hiding. It’s only at night — in Oliver’s room, in the woods by the lake, in a pantry, in a dark alley outside the center of town — that they can give in to one another. This exhausted submission is the heart of the queerness of the romance between Oliver and Elio; they touch one another furtively but with determination, asserting a secret shared between them that can only be felt in private.
Viewers may take issue, not unfairly, with Guadagnino’s decision to cast non-queer actors to play queer characters, a choice that on paper feels out of step with progress. Brokeback Mountain starred two straight actors in 2005, and Andrew Haigh's 2011 film Weekend featured an openly gay actor in one of the two lead roles. Call Me by Your Name is a film directed by an ostensibly heterosexual man [not correct--see above, JG] based on a book written by a heterosexual man starring two heterosexual male leads — and yet its emotional resonance persists.
As a viewer, I’m the last to apologize for actors playing below their privilege, and I simply can’t explain how Call Me by Your Name manages to pull it off. Perhaps it’s the increased normalcy of cishomosexuality, particularly between white men, which has erased the "bravery" of playing queer. Perhaps it's the relatively low profile of every actor in the film — Armie Hammer is well-known, but this is neither a typical role for him nor touted as any kind of dramatic breakout. For all its baked-in heterosexuality [again, what?? JG], Guadagnino’s film is a rapturous portrait of homosexual intimacy that is every bit as deep and tender as its source material.
“Call Me By Your Name” opens in theaters November 24.
The (partial) cast and crew of Call Me by Your Name
Front Row: Victoire Du Bois (Chiara) Esther Garrel (Marzia) Timothée Chalamet (Elio) André Aciman (Author--and Mounir)
Amira Casar (Annella) Luca Guadagnino (Director)
Center Back Row: Peter Spears (Isaac--and Producer) and, Far Right Back Row: Armie Hammer (Oliver)
Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
FYI:
Luca Guadagnino at the 2017 Berlin Film Festival
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_Guadagnino#/media/File:Luca_Guadagnino_(cropped).jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_Guadagnino
Does this look like a straight man to you?? PUH-leeze!!
Front-Ranger:
Informative and very readable. I particularly like your clarifications and comments, JG!
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on September 11, 2017, 03:42:41 pm ---Informative and very readable. I particularly like your clarifications and comments, JG!
--- End quote ---
Thank you very much, Lee!
And just in case you missed this last addition:
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on September 11, 2017, 03:10:01 pm ---
FYI:
Luca Guadagnino at the 2017 Berlin Film Festival
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_Guadagnino#/media/File:Luca_Guadagnino_(cropped).jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_Guadagnino
Does this look like a straight man to you?? PUH-leeze!!
--- End quote ---
Front-Ranger:
:laugh: :P :laugh:
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