I have now seen all of the nine films nominated for Best Pictures and all but one of the acting performances. Call Me by Your Name is probably on the bottom of my list. Critics love it. Me: not so much. Long and brooding, I would tell you to skip it until it comes out in video, pay-per-view or on demand.
Call Me by Your Name (Timothee Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg) – If movies were judged solely on their cinematography, Call Me by Your Name would be a wondrous film. If dialogue were the most critical element of motion pictures, this film would also be really good. Unfortunately, great films must include much more.
Call Me by Your Name was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Film, Best Actor (Timothy Chalamet), Best Adapted Screenplay (James Ivory), and Best Song (The Mystery of Love). But it won’t … and shouldn’t … win for any of them except possibly screenplay. James Ivory, the writer here and also a three-time Academy Award nominee for best director (A Room with a View, Howards End, The Remains of the Day), is 89, which might be an Oscar record.
If Call Me by Your Name centered on the romance between a man and a woman who meet in the Italian countryside in the summer of 1983, it would be considered quaint, soapy, and a little too sappy; you know, a Hallmark Channel flick. But this story is about a homosexual relationship from a time when being gay wasn’t as open as it is today.
This works both for and against the movie. If it had come out 35 years ago, it might have been scandalous and drawn an NC-17 rating. But Ang Lee’s 2005 film, Brokeback Mountain, changed all that. And today, gay relationships are commonplace in today’s films and even dot the TV landscape thanks to Modern Family and Will and Grace. Call Me by Your Name is a beautifully film period piece that can’t escape its schmaltzy treatment. It is more compelling than a simple skin-flick (the guys have their shirts off most of the time) because of the coming-of-age sub-text and the beautiful landscapes.
Call Me is the tale of romance between a bored teenager named Elio and Oliver, an older graduate student interning with a professor of archeology (Michael Stuhlbarg). All this takes place in the aforementioned Italian countryside in a beautiful villa where the Perlman family spends their summers and holidays. (Apparently, being a professor pays better in Europe than in the U.S.)
Elio (Timothee Chalamet) is a brilliant and personable (though a touch shy) teen who is well read and an accomplished pianist. But in matters of love, he is immature and inexperienced. Oliver is the opposite. He is a confident, handsome, fun-loving, free-spirited American exploring Italy while studying with a renowned professor. At first, the two appear to have little in common. Oliver quickly finds a girl while Elio hangs with Marzia (Esther Garrel), a local who has clearly fallen for him. But eventually, the two men are attracted to each other. The rest is Nicholas Sparks romance without someone dying in the end.
The problem with Call Me by Your Name is how tortuously long it is. It takes forever for these two to start their affair and even longer to get to the third act. After all, Oliver has to go back home to America in six weeks, which is about how long this 2 hour-and-12-minute movie feels. By the inevitable parting, you just want to scream: “Do they stay together or not!”?
The film has a very foreign feel thanks to its overseas funding; its Italian director, Luca Guadagnino; its frequent use of sub-titles; and its odd interjection of new songs over the shots of the lush countryside.
Almost every year, the Academy nominates one low-grossing independent movie (it has brought in less than $10 million before being nominated) that has no chance of winning the award but is socially relevant. This is it. Call Me is beautiful and relevant. But it is also tedious and saccharine.