Call Me by Your Name (2017)
Luca Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name arrived in 2017 as one of the most talked-about films of that awards season, and it has barely been out of the conversation since. Based on André Aciman's 2007 novel of the same name, the story is set over a single Italian summer in 1983, following seventeen-year-old Elio as he orbits around Oliver, an older American graduate student who has come to assist his father, a professor specialising in Greco-Roman culture. The premise is simple enough on paper, a coming-of-age romance rooted in one specific, sun-saturated place and time, but Guadagnino's approach to it made the film feel like something of a cultural event. The Italian-British director had been building quietly towards this kind of international attention for years, with I Am Love (2009) and A Bigger Splash (2015) earning him a reputation for lush, sensory-driven cinema that wears its European influences openly. Call Me by Your Name was the film that brought those instincts to a much wider audience, earning four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, and winning one for James Ivory's adapted screenplay.
The production itself is a genuinely international affair, pulling together financing and creative talent from Italy, France, Brazil, and the United States across several studios and production companies. It was shot on location in Lombardy, which gives the film a visual authenticity that no amount of set dressing could replicate, and the period detail throughout, from the clothing to the music to the cultural references, is handled with care rather than nostalgia-by-numbers. Sufjan Stevens contributed original songs that fitted seamlessly alongside period tracks, and his contributions became almost as widely discussed as the film itself. For those who have followed Timothée Chalamet's career through later work, including his turn as a young Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, it is genuinely illuminating to come back to this, the performance that announced him as something worth paying attention to. He was twenty-one during filming, playing a character three or four years younger, and the gap is largely invisible. Armie Hammer, playing Oliver with a kind of easy physical confidence that keeps the character at a slight, frustrating remove, provides the necessary counterbalance. Michael Stuhlbarg, perhaps best known for American character work rather than this kind of quieter European register, rounds out the central family unit alongside Amira Casar and Esther Garrel, whose roles, as we will come to, are not without their complications.
For those interested in what Chalamet brought to an earlier, rawer kind of role, it is also worth reading the Beautiful Boy review, where his particular skill for communicating interior states through physical restraint gets a very different kind of workout. Call Me by Your Name operates in quieter emotional territory, less crisis-driven and more mood-dependent, which makes it a harder film to evaluate fairly. Whether that mood justifies the runtime, and whether the craft excuses some of the structural choices, is exactly the kind of thing worth sitting with.
Call Me by Your Name (2017), directed by Luca Guadagnino, is undeniably a sensory and emotional experience. From its sun-drenched Italian countryside to its lush, era-perfect soundtrack, the film is expertly crafted to immerse you in a world of lingering glances, slow summer days, and quiet yearning. The performances across the board are remarkable: Timothee Chalamet captures youthful confusion and intensity with startling vulnerability, while the supporting cast brings depth and restraint to their roles. Guadagnino’s direction is deliberate and painterly, turning every frame into a meditation on desire, memory, and the fleeting nature of first love.
Yet for all its technical and performative brilliance, the narrative itself struggles to transcend familiar tropes. At its core, the story follows a privileged teenager drifting through an idle summer until a sudden romance forces him to confront his sexuality, a premise that, despite its emotional honesty, can feel somewhat cliche and lacking in structural finesse. The film’s deliberate pacing, while atmospheric, occasionally crosses into indulgence, making the nearly two-and-a-half-hour runtime feel stretched, especially toward a finale that plays out with predictable beats. Additionally, the women in the story are largely relegated to the periphery, functioning more as narrative stepping stones than fully realised characters, which leaves a noticeable gap in what otherwise aims to be a deeply human portrait of connection and growth.
Where the film truly redeems itself (and elevates to near-greatness) is in its final act. The conversation between Elio and his father is a masterstroke of writing and performance, offering a rare, profoundly empathetic reflection on love, loss, and the necessity of feeling deeply, even when it ends in heartbreak. It’s one of the finest scenes in modern cinema, and it lingers long after the credits roll. Call Me by Your Name is a very good film (visually exquisite, beautifully acted, and emotionally resonant in its best moments) but its familiar structure, uneven pacing, and underdeveloped supporting arcs keep it from reaching true masterpiece status. Watch it for the atmosphere, the performances, and that unforgettable closing monologue; just don’t expect it to reinvent the wheel.
A 3.5-star response to Call Me by Your Name feels, honestly, like the honest position for a film of this particular kind of quality: one that leaves a real impression without quite earning the reverence that some corners of the internet insist upon. It sits in interesting company with other visually assured, emotionally serious films that prompt exactly this sort of divided response, films where the experience of watching is richer than the scaffolding underneath. What the film undeniably achieves is a sense of place and feeling that most mainstream cinema cannot get anywhere near, and that closing scene, the one that everyone who has seen this film will know exactly, is the sort of thing that quietly resets your expectations for what a conversation between two people on screen can do. It is not a perfect film, but it is the kind of imperfect film that stays with you, and that, in the end, is worth rather a lot.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2017 | Watched: 2026-06-04
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Call Me by Your Name (2017) on YouTube
Where to watch (UK)
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