Review of Call Me by Your Name (2017) by Steven K — 06 Feb 2018

Merchant-Ivory movies are, to me, a brand. A quality brand, if you are into this type of movie, but a brand nevertheless, and this movie honors the tradition. You get the tasteful, beautifully shot cinema-photography, which is always one of the stars of a Merchant-Ivory movie, you get the "up-scale, upper crust" characters. Everyone in this movie lolls about in chaise lounges and the like while languidly puffing on cigarettes or drinking wine. And you get the arty-farty qualities (this one includes the main character playing classical music on the piano while wearing Talking Head tee-shirts; his father is a well to do professor into collecting artifacts, history, and vaguely snooty word origins. Superseded over this familiar, lovely (in this case, Italian villa) setting we have a nominally gorgeous, young Redfordish visitor catching the eye of a young man in the throes of his true sexual awakening. The women are props; they are neither mistreated, nor are they other than part of the eye candy (for heterosexual men, I gather); they are just there to calm the nerves of movie-goers who may fear they have stumbled into a movie that is entirely too homo for their tastes. The real action is the boys, cavorting in the midst of waterfalls, casting doe-like glances at one another, and falling in love in a tasteful, foreign post card sort of way. I felt benumbed for the most part; this was an awfully predictable movie, and we are meant to relate tot he youthful romantic angst and confusion of its young main character, who is shirtless throughout 80% of the movie. (Someone connected with this movie has a thing for young, very pale, skinny boys with big hair and moody eyes). It's an entirely lovely cinematic rendering of a young gay man's first experience of a same-sex crush and love's delicious and delirious insanity. The sex is kept at a minimum for the squeamish; the art crowd audience prefers its sex suggested off-camera or implied in pretty, symbolic metaphors. I found myself riveted exactly once during this movie, in which my own lust was more toward the food and wine than the actors. (never mind the term "size queen; if you are a "thighs queen" you will be in hog heaven; the men wear shorts throughout).: the scene in which the professorial, rather prissy Father lights up yet another cigarette to.

talk "man to man" with his son in order to assure him he is quite aware of what his son is going through is where the movie delivers its one and only knockout punch. Daddy gets it; daddy really gets it. This movie might well be re-titled "O Lucky Boy",for he has the best parents ever.... but watch out for the gardener! He is an old Italian gent who squints askance at everyone as if he is working at an insane asylum. Maybe he is just horny too, as every male in the movie seems bored with the placid scenery and dull routines of gracious Italian estate living. This is another in a long lineage of films about male to male attraction that makes the subject totally palatable to a movie-going audience; it's a beautiful, swooning snore. Read "Maurice" (the book) instead; the same producers tacked that one. This one will get more accolades because the characters are depicted as at least moderately attracted to women. it is a lovely, if somewhat tedious snap-shot of homo-love just before the dark cloud of the epidemic was about to wreak its monstrous savagery.