Call Me by Your Name Review

Guadagnino shoots the whole film on a single 35mm lens and refuses conventional coverage, which puts everything in one warm register and makes the summer feel remembered rather than dramatized. Sayombhu Mukdeeprom finds northern Italy in dust, orchards and water, and the camera keeps drifting off the leads toward a window or a tree, the way attention actually behaves in heat. Timothee Chalamet does the heavy lifting, playing seventeen as arrogance stretched over terror, and the closing take on his face in front of the fire runs long enough to become unbearable.

Michael Stuhlbarg's speech to his son near the end reframes the picture as something about parents rather than lovers, and it is the best written scene of the year. Sufjan Stevens supplies the two songs and they do real work. What holds us back is the other half of the couple. Armie Hammer's Oliver is written as an object more than a person, the film ducks the imbalance between them, and the middle hour drifts past the point where drifting is a method.