Call Me By Your Name

​Falling in love is a reckoning of sorts: a stroll down a twisty trail. It begins with a silent curiosity for the other person, with everythig they do seemingly, a mystery. The infatuation then slowly kicks in, making the object of love seem larger than life, resplendent, and glorious. This might lead to self loathing, for the inadequacies and insufficiencies that are perceieved in oneself. Occasionally, there is anger and hatred, for a desire that's tangible yet out of reach.

Source: Mongrel Media

And if paths were to align, there is consolation, and of course, passion and love: the hurried cascade of affection for the loved one, the myopic disdain for every other thing or person in the vicinity, the smudgy yet starkly distinct first moments of intimacy and lovemaking, the incessant wave of joy.
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Source: Mongrel Media

​"Call Me By Your Name" doubles up as a documentation of this process, while also being a gorgeous episode of charming people spending a summer in the Italian countryside. If the latter always makes for an idyllic film to watch, the former is what adds this flick considerable depths of emotion and mystique. None of this is thrown at the audiences, but hides obviously under the garb of a slice-of-life summer drama, thereby avoiding any disservice to the script's heft (sublime work by screenwriter James Ivory). 
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​​Everything on screen is very well sketched out by Luca Guadagnino: from the characters to the cast, and everything in between. An impressive selection comprising Amira Casar, Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Esther Garrel, the cast helps us meet and greet the people they portray with a sincere patience. But what remains with one, a long time after watching the movie, is Timothee Chalamet's boyish loneliness, and this film's painstaking ode to love.