Oh hi! There's a very good chance I'm
gonna cry in this video. Two nights ago I
went and saw this movie called Call Me
By Your Name. It is simultaneously this
coming-of-age story, as well as a romance.
And, in my opinion, is the most important
piece of queer cinema since, probably,
Brokeback Mountain. At the very least you
will never look at a peach the same way
again. Trust me on that. The quick
synopsis is that it's about a teenager,
living in Italy with his family, who
falls in love with his father's visiting
research assistant. It's set in the early
1980s and is about sexuality, Jewish
heritage, and (of course) the beautiful and
gorgeous Italian landscape. I want to
explore that sexuality portion. You might as
well call me Un-Focused on the Family. But
I can't stress enough that this movie is
very, very gay. In the best possible of
ways. It captures the struggle of coming
out to yourself, the feeling of shame
that can sometimes come along with that,
and of course the gay sex. Now I'm being
a bit flippant with that, but as a
bisexual man I am very empathetic with
those types of stories. That being said I
cannot imagine somebody who feels
uncomfortable with seeing that type of
stuff on screen would ever enjoy
watching this movie. But prove me wrong
internet! To the other queers out there,
however, I have to say that Timothée Chalamet'sl
performance is wonderful. Not that
he's all that much older than the
seventeen-year-old,
Elio, that he's supposed to be portraying,
but there's just this naturalness to the
way that he acts. He is a teenager so
there's these extreme moments of passion
and moodiness, but he also has this sense
of the carefree. And in moments there's even
a bit of goofiness. This is not the
idealized Hollywood version of what a
teenager is supposed to be. Instead it's
a much more dramatically interesting one.
Armie Hammer gives his first performance
that I've ever truly loved. He's been
fine in other films, I've just never been
blown away. As Oliver he has the
professionalism that you would expect
from a serious research assistant, the
knowledge that their budding love is
going to be a problem, and the tenderness
to make sure that neither side is
feeling pressured. But here's a secret. In
many ways this is a fulfillment of a
fantasy that I had as a teenager. To, you
know, live in the Italian countryside
while an acclaimed singer-songwriter
composes songs to score my life. For
a Canadian kid I would have picked Rufus
Wainwright, but I guess the millennials
need their Sufjan Stevens'ssssss. That rolls
right off the tongue, doesn't it? No, it's
that the unrequited love that I had
would become requited. That the person
that I was crushing on would grab me in
their arms and sweep me away to a world
of happiness. Of course that was just a
fantasy. I never had my Armie Hammer. I had
my arm. And a hammer. I was very confused
with how sex worked as a teenager.
It's – slight spoilers for the movie coming
ahead – but that happiness doesn't even
happen in this movie. It feels like it is,
but then when it doesn't you feel that
crushing disappointment that Elio exudes
but tries desperately to hide. In gay
relationships (not so much nowadays, but
definitely in the past) you had to honour
your relationships in silence. You needed
to hide your true self away, fearful of
the way that society would react to you, and accepting the fact that your future
may not have a happy ending. Which is why
I treasure so much the way that Michael
Stuhlbarg portrays the father of Elio in
this film. He's definitely not the father
that you normally see in these types of
movies, and he's absolutely not the
stereotypical 1980s dad reacting to his
son's sexuality. Near the end of the film
he calls the son over to come and sit on
the couch and this is what he tells him...
This was never gonna have a
happy ending. Myself, as an audience
member ,definitely wanted there to be but
the realities of the time period – as well
as the way that the characters were
being portrayed – it just wasn't meant to
be. One of the underlying themes, then, is
that it's okay to feel sad because then
you know that the thing actually
mattered. Not exactly groundbreaking, I
admit. But I think the story surrounding
that message is. Having a father tell his
son that he not only approves of the
gay relationship that he knows that he's
been having, but also that
you should be proud of it, is mind
blowing for a guy who grew up at a time
where gay equated as evil. "Don't kill it
and with it the joy you felt." This can be
awful for teenagers or adults alike to
hear, when they're in the middle of
devastation. You want to kill the sadness,
and that may mean trying to destroy the
happiness you once had because it is so
closely tied to the sorrow. But to hold
on to that joy instead of having the
grief overtaking you is a powerful
message, no matter what your age is. And
it's something I should probably be
better at following myself. This is another
bit of a spoiler: At the very end, Elio is
crying, the credits are rolling, and he's
just staring off into the distance for a
few minutes. At the very end, before it
does cut to black Elio breaks the fourth
wall and stares directly at us through
the camera, before getting up and going
and sharing a meal with his family. To me
he's accepted his grief. He's not
allowing it to define him, and he's
staring at us, the audience, to defy us
so that we can stand up and continue
living. This movie is not exactly plot
heavy. It languishes on beauty – be it the
human form, or nature – it relishes in the
silences of everyday living. Both the
writer, James ivory, and the director, Luca
Guadagnino, need to be commended for
maintaining that tone for the entire
picture. This movie was nominated for
four Academy Awards, and I polled my
audience on Twitter about whether to
actually do 24 individual videos about
each category of the Academy Awards. The
"NOs" very clearly won out. But instead
what I think I'll do is five videos
going through all of the different
categories. So I'm sure to be talking
about this movie more in the upcoming
weeks. If you've seen the film I'd love
to hear your thoughts on it. Did you have
the same response? Did you hate it? Let me
know down in the comments below, I'll be
responding to each and every one. Thank
you so much for watching! My name is Kyle.
I upload videos every Monday and
Thursday. Although for the next few weeks
that might be a little bit off because
I've been doing some collaborations, and
I'm gonna do those Oscar videos as well.
You can, of course, do the like, comment,
and subscribe thing. But also, if you want
to deeply support me, you can go over onto
my Patreon page, and for as little as a
dollar a month help support me over
there. Man! Those peaches.
They're really sexy, aren't they?
