Call Me by Your Name Dir. by Luca Guadagnino (review)

On January 22, 2017, Luca Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Later the same year, it would receive the longest standing ovation in the history of the New York Film Festival.¹ Thus, it is no surprise that the film has been acclaimed as a modern classic for the GLBTQ community. The content is familiar for many in the community: self-discovery, heartache, and an aspiration for acceptance. The film takes place at the intersection of fantasy and tragedy, as first love often does.

Based on the novel by Andre Aciman, the film follows Elio Perlman, the son of two successful academics, as he spends the summer of 1983 in the rural Italian countryside. Oliver, a visiting researcher working with Elio's parents, arrives as a guest to live with the family while he completes his research. As the film progresses, Oliver hints at his affection for Elio, who is hesitant at first. However, as the two spend more time together they foster a friendship that flowers into infatuation. On the banks of an Italian spring, the two share their first kiss and a passionate romance follows. Quiet about their affection, and each experiencing moments of hesitation, they hide their love from Elio's parents and the women they courted earlier in the film.

As their comfort with one another grows, their time together dwindles. Before long, Oliver's research is finished and he must return to America. The two share a weekend together in Bergamo before Oliver departs. Upon Elio's return to his family, his father prompts a heartwarming conversation about the meaning of love and loss, communicating a love for his son regardless of his sexuality. In a monologue applicable to anyone nursing a broken heart, Dr. Perlman insists that an exploration of both positive and negative emotions is necessary for peace. The film ends on the final day of Hanukkah, when a call from Oliver reveals that he is marrying a woman in the coming spring.

Although the queer components of the plot are ubiquitous, they do not eclipse the inexorable tragedy of first love. This narrative could have easily portrayed a man and a woman and still communicated the frailty of affection as artfully as the original. Guadagnino claims he constructed the narrative to be accessible to a wide audience by limiting sex scenes and full frontal nudity. Still, the way that romance operates in the film already appeals to a wide audience, and films regularly show heterosexual sex scenes and are still considered socially palatable. Thus, Guadagnino's decision could be read as a submission to heteronormative Hollywood expectations made to assimilate the film to straight expectations.

This film so skillfully addresses an audience regardless of their sexual orientation because at its core the film is about love and acceptance unfettered by gender. Furthermore, the narrative advocates for love of one's self. This is most evident in the context of the title. When Oliver and Elio first sleep together, Oliver tells Elio "call me by your name and I'll call you by mine." Therefore, when Oliver says to Elio "I love you, Oliver" he is practicing self-love by addressing his ardor for another. For the GLBTQ community, this is intimately familiar. Often, the closet manifests by policing who people allow themselves to love. Therefore a shedding of those social expectations in an effort to love one's self is a reflexive practice in acceptance. This is illustrated thoroughly in the show.

It is critical that Guadagnino not only shows self-actualization regarding sexual orientation, but also in religion. The two protagonists coincidentally share the Jewish faith. At first, Oliver is the only one to wear the Star of David around his neck, whereas Elio wears only an empty chain. It becomes clear that Elio is ashamed of his Jewish culture and therefore seeks to hide it, at once noting that he and his family are "Jews of discretion...