• About Us
  • Sasha Stone
  • Editor Ryan Adams
  • Clarence Moye
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Awardsdaily - The Oscars, the Films and everything in between.
  • Home
  • Oscar Predictions
    • Best Picture
    • Best Actor
    • Best Actress
  • Good As Gold
  • Forum
  • AD TV
  • Podcasts
  • FYC Gallery
  • Interviews
  • All News
  • Home
  • Oscar Predictions
    • Best Picture
    • Best Actor
    • Best Actress
  • Good As Gold
  • Forum
  • AD TV
  • Podcasts
  • FYC Gallery
  • Interviews
  • All News
No Result
View All Result
Awardsdaily - The Oscars, the Films and everything in between.
No Result
View All Result

The Case For Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name

by Clarence Moye
November 23, 2017
in featured, The Case For
2
The Case For Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name

Perhaps I should have seen it coming.

Buried within the seven films I saw at this year’s SCAD Savannah Film Festival was Luca Guadagnino’s coming of age love story Call Me By Your Name. I’d been looking forward to seeing it, of course, but only as much as any other of the films scheduled to play that week. But I’d forgotten how much I love coming of age stories. And I’d not equated the film with my own Italian honeymoon. And I’d packed away all of the lush memories, some painful and some endearing, of great experiences and loves of my youth.

Call Me By Your Name brought all that back to me. Washed it over me. In spades.

If you’ve ever been to Italy, then you know its appeal. It lies within the landscape and the food and the music and the architecture and the sun – permeating everything and giving you this sort of intoxicating contact high. You stumble through the quaint villages and gorgeous countryside in this haze of love. Love doesn’t even really fully describe the state it puts you in. It’s like this constant state of… well… horniness. Everything there feels sexual and sexy. Even casually flipping on television in a hotel room, I was amazed by the prevalence of sexuality in Italian culture. Where Americans may have commercials for anti-depressants and their endless side effects, Italian television owned the airwaves with soft-core porn ads for 900 numbers. There is nudity everywhere tucked delicately in between the wine and the pasta.

It’s no accident that, nine months following my Italian honeymoon, my son was born.

It’s that kind of perma-sexual haze in which Call Me By Your Name’s Elio (Timothée Chalamet) finds himself when he first meets Armie Hammer’s Oliver. Despite perhaps being a few years too old for the role, Hammer ultimately embodies Oliver in a perfect match of actor to role. To justify Elio’s obsession, Oliver has to hold an iconic magnetism. Women have to want him. Men have to want to be him… and want him secretly. Hammer exudes that aura in reality and in the film. It wouldn’t work without an actor of that nature in the role. You have to understand the obsession. It’s as critical to the story as the luxurious Italian setting.

Once you understand that connection, the film owns you. It helps that Guadagnino understands what lies at the core of the material and the appeal of his homeland. His elegant direction guides the actors through the delicate material, setting them at the forefront and putting his own directorial flourishes aside. He makes brave choices, not just in the material itself but in what he chooses not to show. An American filmmaker would have likely included the novel’s epilogue – a quick flash-forward into the future and America – but it would have wrapped the emotions of the film in a tacky tinsel bow. He wisely closes the film with a long take of an actors face, tears silently streaming down his cheek as he stares into a roaring fire. The take is held for some 5 minutes. It holds you in your seat for at least 10. That is the brilliance of Guadagnino’s direction.

Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer reportedly became great friends on set, and it shows here. As the two obsessives, they have a chemistry missing in most male-to-female onscreen pairings. Chalamet, in particular, is a revelation in the role. He is at once both a petulant, precocious child and a heartsick puppy. He holds a “wise beyond his years” air underscored with hints of immaturity. It’s the kind of performance that a man twice his age would deliver, yet Chalamet does it while barely being old enough to buy alcohol legally. He is one of the strongest contenders for Best Actor this year that I’ve seen.

But as great as his is, Hammer almost has the trickier role. An actor could easily coast on his good looks and animal magnetism to play Oliver. Hammer doesn’t do that. He casually lets his inner teenage boy slip through the cracks of the older, more experienced exterior. He has to balance his good-looking confidence with hints of insecurity. It’s as nuanced a performance as Hammer has ever given. In an unpredictable Supporting Actor race, you can imagine a scenario where voters take him for granted and leave him out of contention. That would be a shame. He more than deserves a slot in the five.

In my opinion, Call Me By Your Name easily emerges as one of the very best films of 2017. It comes in a difficult year filled with tough stories and depressing news. It offers the kind of escapism that only the best films truly can. It instantly whisked me back 25 years to my days as an exchange student in France where I’d made awkward and rebuffed romantic advances to local girls. It made me think about letting go of my first girlfriend and then later saying goodbye to her as she died of cancer. It made me fantasize about spending a carefree three weeks in Italy with my new bride – eating, drinking, and fucking our way through the country.

Finally, and perhaps its deepest connection, it brought back that feeling of anxiety and sorrow over losing great times. I’m reminded how, whenever I go on vacation to a beloved locale, I’m nearly paralyzed. I dread saying goodbye to good times. I would almost rather avoid something deep and meaningful because it doesn’t last. Saying goodbye is a soul-crushing experience, and it’s that final shot of Call Me By Your Name that brings it all home. The camera hangs on the actor’s face as he relives his own great times. I’m reminded of the closing moments of Martin Scorsese’s great The Age of Innocence where Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) considers visiting an older Ellen (Michelle Pfeiffer). Instead, he choses to leave her flat, living with the memory. As Elmer Bernstein’s score swells, he walks slowly away, fading into the background.

It’s painful.

It’s magic.

It’s quietly devastating.

As most great loves – and great movies – are.

Call Me By Your Name is one of those great movies.

Tags: Call Me By Your NameLuca GuadagninoThe Case for
Clarence Moye

Clarence Moye

Clarence Moye is an editor at Awards Daily.

Next Post
As Darkest Hour and Roman Israel Open, the Best Actor Race Waits for One More

As Darkest Hour and Roman Israel Open, the Best Actor Race Waits for One More

Sign up for Awards Daily's Breaking News

* indicates required

Directors Lang, Snaddon On Their Animated Short ‘Snail and the Whale’

Directors Lang, Snaddon On Their Animated Short ‘Snail and the Whale’
by Ben Morris
January 26, 2021
0

ACE Awards Adds New Variety Talk/Sketch TV Category

ACE Awards Adds New Variety Talk/Sketch TV Category
by Clarence Moye
January 26, 2021
0

Jeff Kaufman and Marcia Ross on Documenting Human Rights Activist Nasrin Sotoudeh and the beauty of Iranian Culture for ‘Nasrin’

Jeff Kaufman and Marcia Ross on Documenting Human Rights Activist Nasrin Sotoudeh and the beauty of Iranian Culture for ‘Nasrin’

Human rights activist and lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh participates in a protest. Photo curtesy of Jeff Kaufman

by Shadan Larki
January 25, 2021
0

It’s Our 2021 Golden Globe Preview – Film Edition!

2021 Golden Globe

THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 (L to R) SACHA BARON COHEN as Abbie Hoffman, JEREMY STRONG as Jerry Rubin in THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7. Cr. NIKO TAVERNISE/NETFLIX © 2020

by Clarence Moye
January 25, 2021
0

Independent Spirit Awards Preview

New York Film Critic Circle 2020 Award Winners
by Clarence Moye
January 25, 2021
1

National Board of Review Preview

Predictions Friday – The National Board of Review is Coming
by Sasha Stone
January 25, 2021
11

AFI’s Top Films of 2020

Exclusive: HIFF’s ‘A Conversation With…” Featuring Leslie Odom Jr.

Leslie Odom Jr. stars in ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI Photo: Patti Perret/Amazon Studios

by Sasha Stone
January 25, 2021
83

Lauren Ambrose On Dorothy Taking Charge in the Nastiest Way for Apple TV+’s ‘Servant’

Lauren Ambrose On Dorothy Taking Charge in the Nastiest Way for Apple TV+’s ‘Servant’

(Photo: AppleTV+)

by Joey Moser
January 25, 2021
0

Orion Lee On What King-Lu is Thinking in His Last Scene with Cookie in ‘First Cow’

Orion Lee On What King-Lu is Thinking in His Last Scene with Cookie in ‘First Cow’

(Photo: Allyson Riggs/A24)

by Joey Moser
January 25, 2021
0

Michael O’Connor On The Specific Colors for the Love Story of ‘Ammonite’

Michael O’Connor On The Specific Colors for the Love Story of ‘Ammonite’

(Photo: Neon)

by Joey Moser
January 25, 2021
0

Chloe Zhao To Receive Director of the Year Award at Palm Springs International Film Awards

Mark Johnson’s Good As Gold
by Clarence Moye
January 25, 2021
0

Riz Ahmed on Sound of Metal’s Push for Representing the Underrepresented

‘Sound of Metal’ is a Roaring Achievement

Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios

by Megan McLachlan
January 25, 2021
1

How Daniel Curet Coifed the Perfect Candy-Colored Wig for Cassie’s ‘Promising Young Woman’ Master Plan

Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland Leads Chicago Film Critics Association 2020 Nominations

Photo courtesy of Focus Features

by Shadan Larki
January 25, 2021
0

Join us Facebook

AwardsDaily Crew

  • About Us
  • Sasha Stone
  • Editor Ryan Adams
  • Clarence Moye
  • Contact Us

ADTV Crew

  • ADTV Home
  • Megan McLachlan, Co-Editor
  • Clarence Moye, Co-Editor
  • Jalal Haddad, Senior Contributor
  • Joey Moser, Senior Contributor
  • Kevin Dillon
  • Shadan Larki
  • Ben Morris
  • David Phillips

Follow on Twitter

ADTV Twitter

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertising on Awards Daily

© 1999-2021 AwardsDaily.com

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Oscar Predictions
    • Best Picture
    • Best Actor
    • Best Actress
  • Good As Gold
  • Forum
  • AD TV
  • Podcasts
  • FYC Gallery
  • Interviews
  • All News

© 1999-2021 AwardsDaily.com