By Zach Hester | @hestzach

I’m sure that I’m just strange, but does anyone long for the experience of seeing something for the first time again? For me, this happens a lot with film. I’ll be excited to see a movie that I’ve waited all year long for, and then once the moment comes and goes, the “first time” feeling is gone forever.

This level of reverence is something I experience with Call Me By Your Name, my favorite film of 2017, that I saw for the first time two years ago today *thanks for reminding me TimeHop*.

Just to recap, this character-driven drama follows Elio, a 17-year-old living in the Italian village of Crema. He is intelligent but immature until he meets a worthy sparring partner for his witty intellect, Oliver, his professor father’s graduate student who is staying for the summer. Over the course of their time together, Elio and Oliver discover themselves drawn to each other in ways they could have never predicted.

In my initial review, I stated this movie has the power to elicit tears from even the most stone-cold person. It takes a lot for more to cry, but some stories have the fortitude to call out that emotion from me. Call Me By Your Name is among those stories.

This is a film that fully envelops you inside its world. Once you turn it on, you’re plucked from your seat and placed on a park bench in Crema, the bank of a freezing creek, and cobblestone streets of Bergamo. Each scene is held perfectly in place with a mixed atmosphere of color and sound so that you feel like you are omniscient, staring down into the lives of these interesting characters.

Both performances by our leading men, Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer, remain among the best of the decade. Set against this beautiful background and with careful direction from Luca Guadagnino, both men find the comfort to bare their souls, portraying vulnerabilities in a way that we haven’t seen before from this kind of film. After seeing him in this film, plus his extended filmography in Little Women and Beautiful Boy, I can confirm that Chalamet has become my favorite actor.

Two years later, this film still gives me almost the same sense of wonder that I felt when I first watched it. I won’t ever be able to find that passion to go out, hours from my house just to find this movie in the theater.

Despite this, I own the movie, own the soundtrack, hang the poster on my wall, and have read the book multiple times. I rarely get this invested in a movie, but Call Me By Your Name, a film about self-discovery and the nature of heartbreak has held on to me for these past two years. It’s still a movie I feel like I’m able to throw on at any given time and watch the full thing.

Call Me By Your Name now ranks among my top five films of all time. The list might change around depending on my mood, but it’s always near the top slot. It’s still a movie I think about every day (and listen to the lovely soundtrack weekly), and that more than anything is what makes this movie so infectious.

I hope someday, when I have the money, and the time, I’ll be able to hop on a plane, sleep the entire 15-hour flight, take a train or car, and find myself “somewhere in Northern Italy.” It won’t be 1983, but it’ll do just fine.