Call Me by Your Name is a 2017 film that was nominated for 4 Oscars, including Best Picture and a Best Actor nod to Timothée Chalamet, the film took home the Best Adapted Screenplay award.
Chalamet stars as Elio—a sensitive, brilliant, but emotionally naive 17 year-old who spends an Italian summer learning about love and its inevitable heartbreaks. On the other end of that heartbreak is the graduate student Oliver, played by Armie Hammer, who initially spurns Elio’s affection but comes to invite and encourage it.
Call Me by Your Name is two hours of what could be described as “exquisite torture”—a film that delves into the very beautiful aspects of discovery, deeply rooted attraction, and full-blown adoration—but it also doesn’t shy away from real, raw moments of emotional pain.
Elio and Oliver do in fact fall in love, and yeah, we take that spiritual and physical journey with them. And we also get to endure the impact of their not-so-secret summer affair—not only on themselves—but on those closest to them, including Elio’s parents and the girl he most likely would have given his heart to had he not met Oliver.
Luca Guadagnino directs this film from a script based on a 2007 novel. And this is an incredibly poignant and powerful piece of cinematic storytelling that says a lot of profound things in very subtle and meaningful ways.
So get it into it and see how Call Me by Your Name fits—or doesn’t fit—the definition of strange love…