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Armie Hammer & Timothée Chalamet find love in Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Armie Hammer’s talent seems fairly widely known at this point, but he’s so good in Wounds it feels well worth repeating; he really is an extraordinary lead. It’s truly shocking how quickly he loses himself in this role an then continues to pour every ounce of himself into it as Will experiences his vulnerable, downward spiral. Wounds calls for the viewer to play along and attempt to put the pieces together right along with Will, and Hammer’s highly engaging performance is key to making that happen, while evoking an added frustration that comes with the fact that Will is clearly helpless.
http://collider.com/wounds-review-armie-hammer/#sundance-2019
Sundance 2019
Wounds
Sundance 2019 Review
An Armie Hammer Showcase
with a Swing and Miss Ending
by PERRI NEMIROFF
JANUARY 31, 2019
Dakota Johnson and Armie Hammer in Wounds
Just because a movie doesn’t end the way you hope, doesn’t mean the entire thing is an utter failure, but sometimes that big finish is such an outrageous swing and egregious miss, that it completely changes the way you look at the entire experience. So is the case with Babak Anvari‘s head-scratcher Wounds.
Armie Hammer leads as Will, a New Orleans bartender. It’s a typical night at Rosie’s with Will serving some regulars but then a group of underage college kids walk in. Will cuts them a break, serves them some beers and lets them stay. When a fight breaks out and the cops are called, the kids make a swift exit but amidst the chaos, one leaves her cell phone behind. Will takes the phone home with plans to bring it back to the bar the next day, but after receiving a string of bizarre and disturbing text messages, Will and his girlfriend Carrie (Dakota Johnson) become completely consumed by the mystery at hand.
Wounds starts off strong. The movie opens with a lengthy scene at Rosie’s where we get to settle in by seeing Will in his element. Minus the decision to serve minors, he seems like a decent, charming guy but it quickly becomes clear that he isn’t a “save the day” hero. From there Wounds starts to reveal the layers of its mystery, and they’re downright riveting. The progression of text messages and images become increasingly sinister, and the situation becomes more and more intoxicating as the movie grows darker. Anvari and his team use quick cuts to violent, highly unsettling visuals and also bold stingers in the sound mix to great effect, keeping you firmly on edge, nervously awaiting the next threat to Will and Carrie.
Armie Hammer’s talent seems fairly widely known at this point, but he’s so good in Wounds it feels well worth repeating; he really is an extraordinary lead. It’s truly shocking how quickly he loses himself in this role an then continues to pour every ounce of himself into it as Will experiences his vulnerable, downward spiral. Wounds calls for the viewer to play along and attempt to put the pieces together right along with Will, and Hammer’s highly engaging performance is key to making that happen, while evoking an added frustration that comes with the fact that Will is clearly helpless.
He also has a ton of chemistry with Zazie Beetz. She plays Alicia, his ex and close friend, and Will is caught between still having feelings for her but also filling the role of supportive best friend. It’s an appealing relationship that feels like it’s got a significant amount of history behind it, and Beetz also has this wildly captivity, natural on-screen presence that breathes so much life and energy into her character. Johnson, on the other hand, is in a bit of a tight spot with this role. She’s so soft-spoken and blasé that Carrie comes across as quite dull. Given Will’s feelings for Alicia, it makes sense that he doesn’t appear to be as madly in love with Carrie, but Johnson is so cold in her scenes it’s tough to imagine why Will and Carrie got together to begin with.
That disconnect does suck some of the energy out of Wounds as the film frequently cuts back to Carrie at their home doing her own detective work, but the more devastating problem with Wounds is its ending. I’m going to steer clear of specifics and major spoilers but if you’d rather know nothing at all about the way Wounds wraps up, you might want to stop reading here. But it does feel necessary to address the conclusion given the fact that I suspect it’s something that will heavily influence overall feelings on the film.
Mysterious endings can be highly effective, especially when they send you out the door considering and reconsidering what just happened. Wounds does just that, but the ending is so out of left field and unsupported that the whole story unravels the more you think about it. It’s a shocking conclusion that will be tough to shake, but what’s the point in something like that if the rest of the experience caves under the weight of an ending that seems so out of touch with the rest of the movie? The entertainment value is there and Wounds most certainly had my attention most of the way through, but the swing and miss ending makes it tough to recommend.
Rating: C+
Wounds does not currently have a release date.
FYI, from two years ago:
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on September 10, 2017, 12:50:23 pm ---
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
--- End quote ---
Front-Ranger:
I had the hardest time stopping where the spoilers began, but I did it, because I want to see the movie!
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on February 01, 2019, 02:11:40 pm ---I had the hardest time stopping where the spoilers began, but I did it, because I want to see the movie!
--- End quote ---
I'll remember that in the future, Lee! ;) :-*
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Over time, Will’s growing fragility (Armie Hammer) becomes the most intriguing aspect of Wounds. At first, Hammer seems like he’s out of place in a horror movie — he’s too jocular, too sturdy, too tall — but Babak Anvari manages to subvert his star’s persona. There’s a growing sense that Will’s good looks and general privilege have allowed him to take things for granted.
He didn’t feel compelled to finish college because he assumed that someone would always be willing to pay for the pleasure of having him around. He takes Carrie (Dakota Johnson) for granted because he’s safe in the knowledge that some other girl would always want him. He traipses over Alicia’s boundaries (Zazie Beetz) because he’s confident that she likes it. This is the first time that the world has been an uncertain place for him, and the anxiety exposes how shallow he is under the surface. Someone calls him a “mock person” at one point, which feels as much of a diss to the character as it does a self-own of Anvari’s two-dimensional screenplay.
https://www.indiewire.com/2019/01/wounds-review-sundance-armie-hammer-dakota-johnson-babik-anvari-1202038869/
Sundance 2019
Wounds
Sundance 2019 Review
Armie Hammer
and Dakota Johnson
Fight an Evil Cell Phone
Babak Anvari's disappointing follow-up to Under the Shadow is a
well-calibrated but woefully underwritten jump-scare machine.
by David Ehrlich
@davidehrlich
Jan 27, 2019 6:35 pm
Dakota Johnson and Armie Hammer in Wounds
Babak Anvari’s Wounds opens with a Heart of Darkness quote about the evil wilderness that whispered to Colonel Kurtz, and how it “echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core.” And, uh, that’s a pretty bold choice for a movie about a demonically possessed cell phone that’s trying to contact the emptiness inside of Armie Hammer.
Alas, the trouble with this silly horror exercise — Anvari’s follow-up to his unnerving 2016 debut, Under the Shadow — isn’t that it’s pretentious, but rather that it doesn’t take itself seriously enough. The film’s threadbare story runs parallel to some compelling ideas about masculine insecurity, internalized pain, and the price of genetic privilege, but Anvari’s well-calibrated jump-scare machine is too preoccupied with gross effects, unmotivated jolts, and that strange rash that’s growing in Hammer’s left armpit to engage with any of them. The film may have been conceived as a love letter to the likes of David Lynch and Nicolas Roeg, but — amusingly disgusting finale notwithstanding — it has far more in common with the jittery, skin-deep horror fare that’s filled the massive void those giants have behind after departing for television or the great beyond.
Based on a novella by Nathan Ballingrud, the action begins in a sleepy New Orleans dive bar just before closing time. Will (Hammer), an effortlessly handsome bartender with a shit-eating grin that hides a complete lack of ambition, is the only person on duty, but the crowd is under control. The obese, completely nude woman playing billiards in the back? She’s a regular, and naked girls drink for free. The boisterous drunken tank of a man with questionable politics and a rowdy bunch of meathead friends? That’s Eric (“Orange Is the New Black” actor Brad William), and he’s always like this. Will barely flinches when Eric gets stabbed in the face with a broken bottle. The beautiful twentysomething who flirts with Will before making out with her boyfriend? That’s Alicia (Zazie Beetz), and she’s there every night, which is weird because there are definitely a few other bars in the French Quarter.
Of all these sordid boozehounds and night owls, the only ones who make Will a little nervous are the group of (probably underage) college kids who walk in like they own the place and start filming Eric’s fight instead of doing anything to stop it. Millennials: always helpful when you need to blame someone for all the world’s madness. Will is not amused, and he only gets more annoyed when he sees that one of the teens left their cell phone behind at the bar.
Why does he bring the phone home instead of leaving it at the bar? Will doesn’t know, but his girlfriend Carrie (Dakota Johnson) is suspicious enough that we have to assume there’s some kind of history there. It’s hard to believe that he’s cheated on her before — again, Carrie is played by Dakota Johnson, and her character doesn’t seem to own any pants — but there clearly isn’t much trust between them. Have he and Alicia slept together in the past, or do they just get off on the danger of being near each other? Apologies for all of the rhetorical questions, but Wounds is as short on answers as it is long on ambiguity, which makes for such a maddeningly vague experience that it soon feels more sketched than scripted.
That extends to the nameless supernatural terror that begins to plague Will after he unlocks the abandoned phone and responds to a few eerie text messages.
This might be the point you might want to stop reading, Lee!! :laugh: :laugh:
The person — or thing ! — on the other end of the line sends photos of a man’s decapitated head, and we’re off to the races. Anyone who’s seen a horror movie in the last 20 years can guess where things go from here: Will starts seeing things (giant cockroaches, mostly) and stops sleeping well. He receives a bunch of ominous phone calls, and notices that he’s being followed by a blonde girl in a black Charger (it’s possible to tease out the meaning behind this, but there’s little incentive to try). Literally every single thing in his world turns into a potential jump-scare, as he can’t so much as drink a beer or look out the blinds without the sound editor suddenly cranking things up to 11. It’s no way to live.
Over time, Will’s growing fragility becomes the most intriguing aspect of Wounds. At first, Hammer seems like he’s out of place in a horror movie — he’s too jocular, too sturdy, too tall — but Anvari manages to subvert his star’s persona. There’s a growing sense that Will’s good looks and general privilege have allowed him to take things for granted.
He didn’t feel compelled to finish college because he assumed that someone would always be willing to pay for the pleasure of having him around. He takes Carrie for granted because he’s safe in the knowledge that some other girl would always want him. He traipses over Alicia’s boundaries because he’s confident that she likes it. This is the first time that the world has been an uncertain place for him, and the anxiety exposes how shallow he is under the surface. Someone calls him a “mock person” at one point, which feels as much of a diss to the character as it does a self-own of Anvari’s two-dimensional screenplay.
But it gets harder to be so gracious as the scares intensify. While Anvari has a killer instinct for framing a room for maximum dread, pulling our eyes into shadowy corners only to sock us from another direction completely, his visual imagination remains underdeveloped. Many of the sudden frights come from quick flashes of unrelated imagery (a bloody eyeball here, a severed head there), and that trick is old before he even trots it out. Will and Carrie’s house eventually hosts a portal to…something bad…but the threat of something in the darkness is always scarier than what Anvari eventually shows us — at least until the go-for-broke final scene, which is disconnected from the drama of Will’s story but nevertheless hints at the movie a more disciplined Wounds might have been.
The harder that Wounds cleaves to the idea that its mysterious evil force is just a metaphor for its characters’ inner ugliness, the clearer it becomes that none of these people are real enough to carry that kind of weight. It’s telling that the most interesting scene is the one in which Hammer just sits at his laptop and Googles some generic occult nonsense — there’s a chance he might stumble across the plot of a better film. He doesn’t. Some wounds never heal.
Grade: C-
Wounds premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Annapurna will release it on March 29.
FYI, from two years ago:
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on September 21, 2017, 08:13:04 am ---
It’s 1983, “somewhere in Northern Italy.” The height of summer, and all of the neighborhood teenagers are in heat. Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet, keeping the promise he showed in “Miss Stevens” last September) is still a virgin. A 17-year-old American whose father, a local celebrity, is an eminent professor specializing in Greco-Roman culture (Michael Stuhlbarg), Elio has sprouted from the soil like the apricot trees that surround his family’s villa, and he’s impatiently waiting to bloom. Scrawny enough to be mistaken for a child but sophisticated enough to be mistaken for a man, Elio is a multilingual music prodigy who’s more comfortable with Bach and Berlioz than he is in his own body. He knows everything and nothing. But he’s about to get one hell of an education. (....)
Guadagnino lives for the climactic portion of this story, when feelings are finally transmuted into action and Oliver’s true nature breaks through the marble bust of his body (Armie Hammer’s warmth in these scenes is extraordinary). The details are best experienced for yourself, but it’s safe to say that movie lives up to the book’s steamy reputation, and Chalamet and Hammer throw themselves at each other with the clumsy abandon of first love. Growingly increasingly divorced from its source material as it goes along, the final beats of Guadagnino’s adaptation galvanize two hours of simmering uncertainty into a gut-wrenchingly wistful portrait of two people trying to find themselves before it’s too late.
http://www.indiewire.com/2017/01/call-me-by-your-name-review-armie-hammer-luca-guadagnino-sundance-2017-1201772350/
Sundance 2017
Call Me by Your Name
Sundance 2017 Review
Luca Guadagnino Delivers A Queer Masterpiece
Hot on the heels of A Bigger Splash the filmmaker returns with a film that's worthy of comparisons to Carol and Moonlight
by David Ehrlich
@davidehrlich
Monday 23 January 2017 3:15 pm
‘He’s about to get one hell of an education’ ... Michael Stuhlbarg, Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer in Call Me by Your Name
“Is it better to speak or to die?” That’s the core question of “Call Me By Your Name,” which surfaces in a scene where a character reads the words of Marguerite of Navarre in “The Heptaméron,” but it’s an idea at the heart of all queer narratives. It’s been especially present in queer cinema, where muteness and survival are often the most bittersweet bedfellows. But “Call Me By Your Name” not only quotes Marguerite’s words, it suffuses them into every fiber of its being. It’s a great film because of how lucidly it poses her question, and an essential one because of how courageously it answers it.
Directed by Luca Guadagnino with all of his usual cool (“I Am Love”) and adapted from André Aciman’s beloved 2007 novel of the same name, the rapturous “Call Me By Your Name” nearly rates alongside recent LGBT phenomenons “Carol” and “Moonlight,” matching the artistry and empathy with which those new masterworks untangled the repressive desire of same-sex attraction.
It’s 1983, “somewhere in Northern Italy.” The height of summer, and all of the neighborhood teenagers are in heat. Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet, keeping the promise he showed in “Miss Stevens” last September) is still a virgin. A 17-year-old American whose father, a local celebrity, is an eminent professor specializing in Greco-Roman culture (Michael Stuhlbarg), Elio has sprouted from the soil like the apricot trees that surround his family’s villa, and he’s impatiently waiting to bloom. Scrawny enough to be mistaken for a child but sophisticated enough to be mistaken for a man, Elio is a multilingual music prodigy who’s more comfortable with Bach and Berlioz than he is in his own body. He knows everything and nothing. But he’s about to get one hell of an education.
Every summer, Elio’s father flies out a graduate student to stay at the villa and help him with his research — this year’s intern is Oliver (Armie Hammer, as sensational here as he was in “The Social Network,” but similarly a touch too old for the part). Oliver is 24 and his body is an epic unto itself, as big as any one of the ancient statues that have been dredged up from the local seas. Arrogant, eager, and almost suspiciously handsome for an aspiring historian, the mysterious new visitor often seems as though he got lost on his way to a Patricia Highsmith novel. While much of the film feels stretched between the feverish eros of Bertolucci, the budding warmth of Mia Hansen–Løve, and the affected stoicism of James Ivory (who, at 88, has a co-writing credit on this screenplay), a thin shadow of suspense creeps along the outer edges of each frame, priming viewers for a very different kind of pivot than the one Guadagnino deployed during the third act of “A Bigger Splash.”
Elio and Oliver grow closer as the summer sinks toward its dog days — at first they share only a bathroom, the skinny adolescent looking at his unpredictable new friend as though he can’t understand how they could be the same species, let alone be interested in the same thing. But commonalities and semi-secrets soon emerge: For one thing, they’re both Jews in a land of goys. Oliver, no doubt aware that he looks like the winner of Hitler’s master race, wears a Star of David necklace underneath his shirt, a barely visible emblem of his otherness. The Perlmans, on the other hand, are what Elio’s father describes as “Jews of discretion” (one of the funnier lines in a movie that’s laced with a sharp sense of humor), but the strangeness of celebrating Hanukkah within spitting distance of Vatican City eventually makes its mark.
As the film progresses, Elio and Oliver begin to share more tangible things: Bike rides, errant touches, an unknown desire to have sex with one another (that last one is a biggie). Crucially, however, Elio is as conflicted about his own passions as he is those of the boy next door. His tastes are molten and volatile — he performs the same piano piece in a wildly different style every time he plays it, much to Oliver’s amused frustration. When he’s not busy gawking at his brawny infatuation, he’s enthusiastically trying to deflower the French girl down the street (Esther Garrell, of the New Wave Garrells), who wears her wardrobe of summer dresses like she’s trying to shame away the other seasons.
Telling this story with the same characteristically intoxicating capriciousness that has come to define his work, Guadagnino doesn’t dwell on looks of questionably requited longing. He’s not Todd Haynes and — with the possible exception of a long take mid-movie that follows the two leads around a fountain and endows the space between them with a palpably physical sense of attraction and denial — he doesn’t try to be. Instead, he stays attuned to the raw energy of trying to feel someone out without touching them, of what it’s like to live through that one magical summer where the weather is the only part of your world that doesn’t change every day.
Rippling with nervously excited piano compositions and shot with immeasurable sensuality by Thai cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (“Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” and “Arabian Nights”), “Call Me By Your Name” is a full-bodied film that submits all of its beauties to the service of one simple truth: The more we change, the more we become who we are. Like the Latin prefixes that Oliver and Mr. Perlman trace back to their roots or the antiquated artworks that resonate because of how much the world has changed since their creation, Elio learns that growth — however wild or worrisome it might seem at the time — is the greatest gift that he can give himself.
Watching him slowly come to that realization is an unforgettable and enormously moving experience because of how the film comes to realize it, too. Guadagnino lives for the climactic portion of this story, when feelings are finally transmuted into action and Oliver’s true nature breaks through the marble bust of his body (Hammer’s warmth in these scenes is extraordinary). The details are best experienced for yourself, but it’s safe to say that movie lives up to the book’s steamy reputation, and Chalamet and Hammer throw themselves at each other with the clumsy abandon of first love. Growingly increasingly divorced from its source material as it goes along, the final beats of Guadagnino’s adaptation galvanize two hours of simmering uncertainty into a gut-wrenchingly wistful portrait of two people trying to find themselves before it’s too late. As Elio’s father puts it in a heart-stopping monologue that every parent might want to memorize for future use: “Don’t make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything. What a waste.”
Leaving us with one of the gorgeous new songs that Sufjan Stevens wrote for the film, this achingly powerful story — a brilliant contribution to the queer cinema canon — breathes vibrant new life into the answer that Marguerite of Navarre gave to her own question. “I would counsel all such as are my friends to speak and not die,” she said, “for ’tis a bad speech that cannot be mended, but a life lost cannot be recalled.”
Grade: A
“Call Me By Your Name” premiered in the Premieres section of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics will release it later this year.
--- End quote ---
Aloysius J. Gleek:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/style/timothee-chalamet-flight-economy.html
NOTED
When Celebrities Fly Coach:
Timothée Chalamet
is the latest in a line of public figures who have drawn
outsize attention for sitting with the rest of us.
by Valeriya Safronova
@vsaffron
Feb. 7, 2019
Alankrutha Giridhar and a fan. Alankrutha Giridhar
When Alankrutha Giridhar boarded her flight on Monday, she was understandably more concerned with finding overhead luggage space than meeting her seatmate.
Then she got a closer look at his face.
“When I sat next to him, I was like, ‘I’m 100 percent sure it’s him,’” Ms. Giridhar said, “but I didn’t want to prod or be weird or creepy.”
The man sitting next to her — in economy class and the middle seat, no less — was Timothée Hal Chalamet: the 23-year-old Oscar nominee (for Call Me by Your Name), Frank Ocean fanboy and early adopter of the luxury fashion harness. Er, bib.
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/01/221513/timothee-chalamet-sequined-harness-explained
For the first hour and a half of the journey, Ms. Giridhar tried to conceal her excitement about sharing limited legroom with Mr. Chalamet. But when he asked her when the flight would land, Ms. Giridhar couldn’t help addressing his fame. She told him she knew who he was and asked him why he was in economy.
“He was just like, ‘What do you mean?’” Ms. Giridhar said. “He didn’t actually answer. I said, ‘People must recognize you.’ And he said, ‘You’re the only one. Nobody else has.’”
In flying coach, Mr. Chalamet joined a long list of public figures who have been noticed in the cheap seats. Prince William flew coach from Memphis to Dallas in 2014 after a wedding. His brother, Harry, and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, reportedly took up three rows with their security team when they traveled to Nice aboard British Airways last year. In 2012, Jessica Alba sat in economy on a trip from Los Angeles to New York while her two kids and their nanny were in first class, according to Radar Online. Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and their six children took an Air France flight from Paris to Nice in 2015, according to The Daily Mail.
Traveling in economy “is relatively common for people of all pay scales,” said Liana Corwin, the consumer travel expert at Hopper, a flight-booking app. “I think the key thing is convenience.”
Ms. Corwin added that celebrities and professional athletes regularly book flights through Hopper, and the app only offers seats in coach. “They’re people just like us and they have schedules they need to maintain, and sometimes economy will get them there faster and easier,” she said.
Claire Danes said as much about her choice to fly coach after she won the Screen Actors Guild award for best actress in a TV movie or mini-series in 2011. “It’s the only seat available, and I have to go back to work tomorrow morning,” Ms. Danes told Extra. “I get to shower in the hotel and then I go to set — and act some more.”
But it isn’t always about convenience. In 2014, Amy Adams, a six-time Oscar nominee, traded her first-class seat from Detroit to Los Angeles with a soldier who was in coach. She told Inside Edition that the point was to bring attention to people serving in the military.
Politicians are often spotted on airplanes, too. An observer once captured a shot of Mitt Romney snoozing with his mouth open in an aisle seat. Bernie Sanders has appeared in coach enough times to spark a hashtag: #SandersOnaPlane. Though convenience might certainly be a factor in both cases, it doesn’t hurt that flying “with the people” gives a politician a relatable gleam.
Ms. Giridhar certainly experienced that with Mr. Chalamet. “He was asking me so many questions about my life,” she said. “I was like, ‘This is so weird. Why are you asking questions about me?’”
Later they took a selfie, which Ms. Giridhar tweeted as part of a witty, charming Twitter thread about her experience.
Their conversation continued for the remainder of the journey.
“When the flight landed, we were talking about his upcoming films,” Ms. Giridhar said. “He wished me luck with my career,” which is in information technology. Her response? “I hope you win multiple Oscars one day.”
Valeriya Safronova is a reporter for the Style section. She is based in New York.
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