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Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Call Me By Your Name (2017)

 This film is nominated in the category of Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actor.  It is the story of on an affair between Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet), a coltish 17-year-old boy on the verge of manhood and Oliver (Armie Hammer), an American in his 20s (it is possible that in the book the age range is a bit closer, but here Chalamet looks every inch a teenager, whereas Oliver is very much a mature and experienced man). Elio lives with his father (a tremendous Michael Stuhlbarg) and mother (Amira Casar) in a villa in northern Italy. Each summer the father, a professor of Greco-Roman culture, invites a student to work with him and stay with his family; this year it’s Oliver who moves in.  Nobody seems to work except for the hired help.  There are long languid summer days, with lots of lying about and swimming and taking your time, intermixed with sensuous food, all of which lends a seductive air to both the characters and the overall movie.  Elio initiates the affair, the parents consent to it, and while Elio is experimenting with a man, he is also having an age appropriate affair with a local woman.  It is beautifully told, redolent of Italy, and sweetly portrayed.  Probably not the winner takes all film, but if that happened, I would be absolutely happy about it.

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