Call Me by Your Name (2017)

The most recent Oscar winner for best adapted screenplay Call Me By Your Name is based on the 2007 novel of the same name by André Aciman. The story concerns a 17 year old boy (Timothée Chalamet) who has a romantic relationship with his professor fathers 24 year old graduate assistant (Armie Hammer) in Italy over the summer of 1983. The movie is very well written and acted, it is owing to its subject matter and source material a very literary work, the action on the surface of things is minimal, what it is truly about is what is going on internally for its characters, and it does an unusually good job of conveying that.

In many ways Call Me By Your Name is first rate stuff, but it is also disturbing in its implication. In the context of the film I think that Hammer's character did Chalamet's character very little long term harm, and most of that is the kind of collateral damage that you can expect from a first love situation. However in the real world such a relationship would have been predatory, and had it happened in the States rather then Italy illegal because of statutory rape. The inherent creepiness of this is amplified by the fact that while Chalamet was 21 at the time and looked younger, Hammer was 31, 7 years older then the character he was supposed to be playing, and he looks it. This is the kind of film that middle America hates Hollywood for, and its understandable. Yet as cinemahile, even though I can't approve of all the actions in the movie, it was simply so impressively well done that I think it really does earn ****.  Sorry.