Review of Call Me by Your Name (2017) by Fairbrother — 03 Mar 2018

First Love and Sexual Awakening are some of the ripest, most universally resonant themes in any art-form, so we've all seen them handled before many times. Call Me by Your Name pulls off the neat trick of feeling simultaneously new and timeless: a story you've seen before yet, somehow, haven't.

I keep turning this film over and over in my mind, looking for a flaw, and I can't find one. The performances - Timothee Chalamet and Michael Stuhlbarg in particular - are excellent. The script builds drama so incrementally you hardly notice it, in such a way that the final 20 minutes, despite resisting any melodramatic contrivance or hysteria, overwhelmed me emotionally.

Kudos to director Luca Guadagnino for realizing this delicate tone with evocative but unfussy framing, bang-on casting, and marrying a modern perspective with a classical sense of pace and purpose. Call Me by Your Name is a gorgeous ode to the ecstasy and agony of growing up; to the sunshine of discovery and the shadow of wisdom; to the "mystery of love" we spend our whole lives puzzling over.