Let’s bite right into the sweetest part of the fruit while it’s ripe. There’s a scene near the end of Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of André Aciman’s novel Call Me By Your Name between Michael Stuhlbarg and Timothée Chalamet that is, I feel confident in saying, one of the best exchanges between father and son in the history of cinema. We’ll all be quoting from it for the rest of our lives.

For many it will be a moment of wish fulfilment, and that may go doubly for queer people whose parents tragically reject them for their nature. The scene is touching and triumphant, but it wouldn’t work on an island. It comes after a build-up, an unhurried coming-of-age tale set in 1980s Italy reminiscent of the best of Eric Rohmer, Bernardo Bertolucci and André Téchiné, in which Elio (Chalamet) falls in love with Oliver (Armie Hammer) and needs to decide how he’ll direct the rest of his life.

Oliver is the latest in a string of annual research assistants joining professor Perlman (Stuhlbarg) at his family’s fabulous summer villa. Elio’s father is an archaeologist/art historian, and his French mother (Amira Casar) recites German poetry, translating it on the fly as the two men in her life cuddle up with her on the couch. For fun Elio transcribes classical piano scores, which he can also transpose to guitar. The Perlman family is one that can slip a reference to Heidegger into conversation and no one will bat an eye.

Review: Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman Read more

It’s a world where the broad-shouldered, blond Oliver fits in nicely. He savagely owns professor Perlman with his mad etymology skills, breaking down the word “apricot” to its Latin, Greek and Arabic roots. His half-unbuttoned shirt reveals a Star of David necklace, which catches 17-year-old Elio by surprise. (Elio later explains that his mother considers the Perlmans “Jews in discretion” in the sleepy northern Italian vacation village.) At first Elio is annoyed by Oliver, but quickly becomes infatuated. How Oliver feels about Elio is more of a mystery, but as the days and nights continue (so many meals outside! And dancing to the Psychedelic Furs!) the invitations to “go for a swim” eventually turn intimate.

Of the numerous fascinating, nuanced and realistic facets to their relationship, it’s hard at times to determine who is the driving force. Elio seems the aggressor, and unashamed about his feelings. (Though why is he so determined that his family’s gay friends catch him smooching a vacationing French girl?) Oliver seems so lithe, but are his initial rejections meant to protect Elio, or is he himself panicked about doing “something bad”? Luckily, this is a movie wise enough for its characters to be a little contradictory.

Luca Guadagnino’s last two films, A Bigger Splash and I Am Love, were both highly stylised, with dazzling extreme closeups, high-speed editing and brash musical selections. To put it in blunt terms, he reels it in this time. Scenes play out at a pace more befitting a summer in the Italian sun, and while there’s no shortage of well-placed props (a Robert Mapplethorpe print here, a Talking Heads T-shirt there) the natural settings and ancient cities are enough to keep the frame looking marvellous. A lesser film-maker (and co-writers including Walter Fasano and the great 88-year-old James Ivory) would probably cut the scene where bike-riding Elio and Oliver ask for a glass of water from an old woman peeling beans outside an old house. But these are the true-to-life grace notes that make this film so touching.

Call Me By Your Name is a masterful work because of the specificity of its details. This is not a love story that “just happens to be gay”. The level of trust and strength these characters share brings a richness that is not necessarily known to a universal audience. But the craft on display from all involved is an example, yet again, of how movies can create empathy in an almost spiritual way. This is a major entry in the canon of queer cinema.