BEFORE: Here I go, kicking off the second half of the year with the re-scheduled Timothée Chalamet trilogy that was originally going to connect "Little Women" with "On the Basis of Sex" (before I figured out another way to do that in ONE film instead of three), but before that I was going to watch it in 2018, only I had trouble playing an Academy screener. It's funny how things work out sometimes, who knows - maybe if I had watched this in 2018 as planned, then I'd be stuck here without a connection to move me forward, and my chain would come to an end. Let's not even think about that, it's too horrible.
But really, it's the year of the re-schedule, right? These days if something isn't being held virtually on-line, then it's not happening or being re-scheduled. We're going to all spend the whole summer watching re-scheduled events like the Kentucky Derby and NASCAR races and baseball games, plus the spring blockbuster movies that didn't get released and that new season of "Fargo" if they can finish filming it. Weddings, funerals, elective surgeries, all I can think about is how busy everyone's going to be after nearly three months of lockdown. Who's going to have time to go to the beach or have a drink in a bar, somebody's got to do the accounting from April and hey, don't you have a tax return to file? And what about that dental appointment or your kid's vaccination schedule, which is probably more important than ever now - we don't want measles and mumps to make a comeback just because Covid-19 slowed us down.
Anyway, my lead-in is different but I'm finally clearing this one off my schedule on the third attempt. Michael Stuhlbarg carries over from "A Serious Man" - in September 2017 I watched four films in a row with Michael Stuhlbarg in them (and a total of 7 for the year) - "Pawn Sacrifice", "Miles Ahead", "Arrival" and "Trumbo". As far as I know, I may hold the record, but he's been in a fair number of films, so perhaps not. Still, I'm not aware of anybody else out there doing what I do the way I do it, so I like my chances.
THE PLOT: In 1980's Italy, romance blossoms between a seventeen-year-old student and the older man hired as his father's research assistant.
AFTER: Well, maybe you could say I've been avoiding this one, because it puts me a bit out of my comfort zone - but I've been known to watch a gay romance or two in February, I watched "Jenny's Wedding", didn't I? I should be comfortable enough in my own orientation to allow this sort of thing in the countdown. I was raised hardcore Catholic, but gay marriage is the law of the land now, I've known plenty of gay people, so even though this isn't my thing I still can watch it in a movie. I've watched plenty of movies that don't relate directly to my own experiences, like boxing movies and football movies, like sports, it's just another lifestyle that's out there that doesn't directly figure in to my everyday life - not since the divorce, anyway. My ex retained all the LGBTQ (and sometimes Y) friends. JK.
I managed to have this film on the list for TWO full years without anyone spoiling the details of "that" scene - only to have somebody crack a joke about it the DAY BEFORE I watched it. So if you haven't seen this and you don't want to know about "that scene", then spoiler alert, please turn back now. Like a secret same-sex attraction, it's probably going to come up at some point.
June is the season for Pride Month, right? So I'm a few days early, but let's consider it a trilogy, with "Chuck & Buck" on one side and another gay-romance film on the other. Only one of them will be scheduled during the correct month, but that's something, anyway. The three films didn't link together, so there's about two weeks of bridging material between them, but for my purposes, that's still considered a working trilogy. June is mostly going to be about Fathers Day, I'm going to double-check my links today - with a couple school-based films thrown in it's going to mostly be about Dads and grads, and I'll work in one more queer film for Pride Month.
All that being said, I don't think I "get" this film. Maybe I'm not supposed to "get" this film - the emotional issues are very complex, I think, or maybe I'm missing something, because the actions don't always line up with the emotions, at least on some level. If this teen boy has an attraction to this older man, that's OK, but then why does he act in that certain way? You know, like he's disinterested or dismissive to this person that he's attracted to? Is Elio in denial, or does he not yet understand what to do with the feelings that he has? Is this a case where two people just can't seem to get on the same page for a long time, because it's awkward or because they're trying to hide from an unaccepting world, or because they accidentally sent each other the wrong signals? Maybe if you want the straights out there to understand the plot, you've got to dumb it down for us? Is the director being subtle or enigmatic or just plain "arty"? I don't think I can tell the difference here.
I'm just going to ask the questions, even if that makes me seem dumb to some degree - if these two men are attracted to each other, why do they both date or fool around with women? I'd expect Oliver to be more comfortable with his orientation because he's older, I can imagine that Elio hasn't really had time to figure everything out, so what gives, what am I missing? Are they gay or bi-sexual, or just as confused as everyone else was in the 1980's? Oliver dances with women at the nightly town get-togethers in the Italian square, and Elio goes swimming with a local girl and has a pretty heavy make-out session with her. Of course, these incidents are nothing compares to what happens when the two men get together, but I'm still left sort of scratching my head. If the gay sex and the relationship between the two men means so much, why doesn't it mean everything?
I'm trying my best to remember what the prevailing attitude was in the 1980's - it's possible that across the board, there was this belief or attitude that a gay relationship was not sustainable over a long period of time. To a large degree, this was a fallacy based on a negative stereotype, but it persisted even within the gay community. Remember, gay marriage was impossible, and a long-term exclusive gay relationship was like an albino elephant or something - you could probably find one if you looked long enough, but many gay people didn't believe it would even happen to them, so why even get their hopes up? And thus it became a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy - well, why wish for what you can't have? Might as well party like it's 1999, then...
Still, what's up here, was Elio experimenting with girls out of curiosity, a general interest, or just trying to keep his options open? I guess if you're 17 and horny, you'll do just about anything, including pieces of fruit if you live near a peach orchard and there are more peaches than you know what to do with. Hey, peaches are sexy, I get it - we've got a diner here in Queens NY that has a giant halved peach on its neon sign, and once you look at it a certain way, there's no going back. (It's not called the "Vaginer Diner", but it might as well be.). I guess in some ways it's a natural progression from "American Pie" (apples) to "Girls Trip" (grapefruit) to where we find ourselves now. So far it's been all about where men have been putting their things, but you know somebody in Hollywood is pitching bananas as a plot point, only to be told that sex with fruit is "so 2017".
I don't even really get the "Call Me by Your Name" bit - if you want to have a nickname for your lover, that's one thing, but isn't it just too confusing when that nickname is your own name? Call me old-fashioned, but what happened to "pookie" or "sweetie" or "hot stuff"? Is this some kind of ego-trip that allows somebody to call out their own name during sex and get away with it? It feels a bit more like some actor accidentally called another character by the wrong name and then the story had to bend itself over backwards to explain why that wasn't a mistake. But I know that can't possibly be the case here.
I guess what's universal here is the feeling of happiness and fulfillment that a romance can bring, and the depression and withdrawal that its absence can cause when it's over. Everything ends, only it can be difficult for younger people to be aware of that going in, and the first cut is the deepest, right? But if we can step outside ourselves for just a minute then everything we endure is just another experience we had, and the good news is that collectively we're all moving forward, and each generation might have a little easier time of things if we're doing it right. Am I getting close to something, or did I completely miss the mark here?
It was driving me crazy listening to Armie Hammer, thinking that his voice reminded me of somebody else, only I couldn't quite place it. He really tends to sound like he's narrating a car commercial most of the time. But I googled to see if anybody else had thoughts about his voice, and someone else pointed out that his vocal twin is Jon Hamm. That's it! Armie Hammer sounds as if Jon Hamm just had a cup of hot tea with honey to get rid of a bit of the scratchiness. What a relief, I'm not crazy. Not for that reason, anyway.
This film is still on that list of "1,001 Movies To See Before You Die" - so update the big board, I've now seen 427 of them, with another 9 still on the watchlist, and I should get to one more of them before the end of May. One is scheduled for October, plus I can knock off three more if I can get to my Ingmar Bergman chain in late 2020 or early 2021.
Also starring Armie Hammer (last seen in "On the Basis of Sex"), Timothée Chalamet (last seen in "Little Women"), Amira Casar (last seen in "At Eternity's Gate"), Esther Garrel, Victoire Du Bois, Vanda Capriolo, Antonio Rimoldi, Elena Bucci, Marco Sgrosso, Andre Aciman, Peter Spears (last seen in "Something's Gotta Give")
RATING: 5 out of 10 pairs of cutoff jean shorts
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