The pairing of James Ivory and Luca Guadagnino is not one I would have thought of myself. The two storytellers examine passion in such different ways. Guadagnino loves to mix in eroticism, he has a keen eye for the physicality of sex. Ivory, as he so often did in his films with life/professional partner Ismail Merchant, has a much more intricate approach. The austere costumes and settings of the Merchant-Ivory films may have led some to believe that they may be plagued with a more standard English emotional repression, but the exact opposite was true: their films had emotions that were violent and occasionally tragic. Guadagnino, on the other hand, is not above bypassing emotions for sensuality. Guadagnino’s art is a blistering Renaissance painting; Ivory’s is a complex Fabergé egg.

The combination, with Guadagnino as director and Ivory as screenwriter, ends up working beautifully with Call Me By Your Name, a seamless, purposeful collaboration between the two. The film is based on a novel by André Aciman, and tells the story of a teenaged boy named Elio Perlman (played with effortless charm and stunning vulnerability by Timothée Chalamet), a Jewish-American living with his parents in Northern Italy in the early 80’s. His father (Michael Stuhlbarg) is an archaeology professor, and his mother (Amira Casar) is an Italian academic. They live in a house of egalitarian culture. Elio’s mother will read centuries-old German literature, his father can trace the linguistic beginnings of most any words, while Elio himself can play a classical music piece on piano or guitar in various styles. They speak English, French, Italian, probably more.

This is the setting that greets Oliver (Armie Hammer), a dangerously handsome American student who has been invited to spend the Summer with the Perlmans as an assistant to Elio’s father. Oliver is both willing to embrace the culture of Italy, but unable to shed his most striking American-isms. He exits every conversation with a very direct “Later”. Elio must give Oliver his room when he arrives, and the two have to share a bathroom. Oliver very quickly fits into the lively but modest nightlife that Elio introduces him to. While Elio pursues losing his virginity to Marzia (Esther Garrel), Oliver acquaints himself with his own number of women quite willing to acquaint with him. In their hearts, though, both Oliver and Elio share a romantic bond with each other; a bond that goes from subliminal to actual to physical throughout the course of the film.

Guadagnino knows how to tell a tale of sexual longing. His 2009 film, I Am Love, was about a matriarch played by Tilda Swinton who was willing to throw away her generational family fortune for erotic ecstasy with a young chef. That film was brilliant in a way that his next film, A Bigger Splash, was not. Splash was all erotic, no substance – it perhaps bought too much into the mythology of Tilda Swinton. Call Me By Your Name and Ivory’s script of it presents the Italian director with a perfect in-between, a story told with confidence and patience which then becomes a movie that understands what makes eroticism so special to begin with. What Elio and Oliver’s relationship blooms into is something like love, but that’s not what Ivory and Guadagnino hone in on. Again, they’re dealing in passion.

With Ivory shoring up Call Me By Your Name‘s script, Guadagnino is allowed full authority to craft a truly rich, visual experience. He employs Sayombhu Mukdeeprom – probably best known for his work on Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives – to fill the film with gorgeous long takes that fill the frame with the vast landscapes and cavernous interiors of the film’s setting. From its first moment, which includes a truly unique opening credits sequence, Guadagnino fills the film with such evocative imagery. The film takes place during one of those hot, sticky Summers where everyone is either heading into the pool or just coming out of one, sporting perpetual shorts of various colors (this is created by the great work of costume designer Giulia Piersanti). The film pushes its 80’s timeline through the intoxicating music of Giorgio Moroder and The Psychedelic Furs.

Of course, the film’s success hinges almost entirely on Chalamet, recently seen reading Howard Zinn and describing things as “hella tight” in Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird last month. I don’t think there was any preparation for the skill, the overall immersion of Chalamet’s work in Call Me By Your Name. The center of Ivory’s script is Elio’s complicated coming-of-age, his fierce need to consummate his sexual hunger, first with Marzia, then with Oliver. The film works because Chalamet looks so much like a child while still being able to translate those complex adolescent feelings onto the screen. Even in love scenes, Chalamet presents a curiosity followed by a raging desire. The romance in this film is youthful, because Chalamet makes it so.

The performances from Hammer and Casar are equally strong, both showing a love and understanding for Elio that are both completely different but both enduring. As Mr. Perlman, Stuhlbarg shows that he is the kind of dependable character actor whose brilliance is so absolute and complete that it will forever be impossible to truly appreciate. He delivers a monologue at the film’s conclusion that works both as a summary and as advice. It’s his character’s attempt at reaching his son, but it is also the film’s attempt to reach the audience. The brilliance of everything coming together at that moment – from Guadagnino’s astounding filmmaking, to Ivory’s note-perfect words, to Stuhlbarg’s restrained, effortless delivery, and Chalamet’s heartbreaking silent response – is a microcosm of Call Me By Your Name‘s accomplishment. It’s something worth getting passionate about.

 

Directed by Luca Guadagnino