Elio, a 17-year-old American, develops a relationship with his academic father's assistant during a summer holiday in Italy. The relationship becomes a sexual one as Elio admits his infatuation with the older man. Call Me by Your Name garnered a host of accolades, partly helped by the theme having a universal resonance beyond just being another story of gay love against the odds and social stigma, but the age gap between the leads, as able asTimothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer are, is more questionable. So is the inherent cosiness of the understanding parents, the reliance on picture postcard locations and the boy effectively being a polymath, fluent in three languages, versed in local history and musically gifted. Clearly these attributes are meant to make us feel his sensitivity, but also provide an excuse to show him moping like any daft teenager for a large part of the considerable running length. The decision to go without subtitles in a trilingual film is also ill-advised. I may be able to cope with the French and Italian dialogue, but not everyone should be expected to.
It concludes Guadagnino's 'Desire' trilogy, after Io sono l'amore and A Bigger Splash, and certainly has fewer glaring flaws than its precursors, but is still limper than what the subject needs.
5/10
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