A couple guys playing grab-ass is not a plot for a movie. Elio (Timothee Chalamet) is a horny 17-year-old who falls for the graduate student his professor father hires to help him during the summer. Oliver is seven years older and “experienced.” Both men run around with their shirts off a lot. Elio specializes in giving Oliver smoldering glances. But, in these coming of age movies you know the drill. There’s nothing novel, no surprises, no suspense, and no unpredictability in Call Me By Your Name. Like the glacial Phantom Thread the pacing of Call Me By Your Name would be envied by snails. GRADE: D (for dull, dull, dull)
And yet it was nominated for Best Picture (proving yet again my contention that expanding the category is a joke), Best Actor, and Best Screenplay.
Once again, George does the dirty work so we don’t have to.
Pass.
Jeff, you’re right about the Academy expanding the BEST PICTURE category. Big Mistake!
I agree. It sounds tawdry
Maggie, Elio does something kinky with fruit that I found disgusting.
I don’t mind a film being tawdry & disgusting, but I draw the line at slow-paced.
Dan, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME just creeps along. It felt like it lasted for four hours!
With movies like this, I always ask if it would be so popular/lauded/revelatory if the genders were reversed. I don’t think—especially this year—the Academy would be tripping over itself to honor a movie where a man in his mid-twenties pursues an underaged (albeit only by a year) girl. So…no. Pass for me too.
Deb, I like the Deb Test for Movies (maybe it will become as famous as the Bechdel Test!).
“Both men run around with their shirts off a lot.” It’s summer! In southern Italy! God help me. This is one of the snarkiest posts I’ve ever read on a blog from someone who I thought was pretty open minded. Pacing envied by snails. That’s more bitchy than some of my gay friends get. It wasn’t an action movie. It’s languorous, summer idyll of sorts.
The peach scene was hysterical to me. No more different than the pie in American Pie. I’m gay and I thought I was going to hate it because I have an issue with teen boy/older men movies. For such an inexperienced and young actor I thought Chalafet made mature choices. The acting in this movie was top notch no matter what all you people think (or imagine since only George has actually seen it). And the final scenes were pretty powerful. The father’s monologue at the end meant more to me than the entire movie.
I’ve lived this movie, maybe not in such a gorgeous Italian backdrop, but I knew the pain and agony of trying to go with the flow, find a girlfriend, and be “normal” all the while knowing I could never be that “normal” person. I don’t think straight people can’t possibly understand the compromises and painful choices teen gays suffer in coming to terms with their own identity. Look at how teen gay suicide is the worst it’s ever been. Maybe you don’t care. And we continue to face all the BS of prejudice and intolerance and religious claptrap well into adulthood. Forgive my soap box mounting here but I can’t allow people to dismiss this movie with such snarky reactions (especially from a load of people who haven’t even seen it!) when it seems to me that they have no real understanding of how true and heartwrenching this “familiar” this story is.
J. F., the Travel Channel has better Italian scenery than CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. You saw a different movie than I saw. You liked it, I was bored out of my mind.
I liked it too. I found it a touching story of a first romance. The father’s speech at the end brought me to tears. A pure love story is so rare nowadays.
Patti, the father’s speech was the best moment in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. The rest of the film was a snoozefest for me.
That pouty Rod McKuenesque title alone puts this movie on my PASS list!
Bob, there’s a lot of pouty moments in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME.