Call Me By Your Name: Now That Some Time Has Passed

Totally agree.

The behavior and lifestyle of the characters seemed like a complete fantasy, including Arnie Hammer’s character being hired and flown to Italy to do basically nothing but lay in the sun, swim, and ride his bike by a professor who also seems to do nothing.

The boy was just not interesting either. And the casting was disastrous, making it look like a love affair between a 14 year old and a 40 year old.

Chalamet is completely overrated.

I loved it. Gorgeous film, great performances.

R1 " And the casting was disastrous, making it look like a love affair between a 14 year old and a 40 year old."

I didn't write that because I thought it a bit extreme and I'd immediately be attacked, but I totally agree. Chalamet was supposedly 20 when he filmed it, but his body was SO lean he easily could have passed for 14. I felt like I was watching that chicken hawk documentary. (I wouldn't go so far as to say 40, but definitely 30).

Thanks

There isn't a single thing that hasn't already been said on here about this film.

R2 I don't know about completely overrated, I'd go with slightly. He was fine. Very good, actually. But Best Actor? I just didn't see it.

R3 No shit. That's what most people write. Could you be specific? It was beautifully filmed. I'll give it that. But all Merchant/Ivory movies are. But for me, some are so boring they work better than Ambien, (although as stated, I wasn't bored in CMBYN).

R5 Opinions change over time. Thus the new thread.

I totally loved La La Land the first time I saw it. I thought it was fresh and innovative. I watched it again recently on cable. I still liked it quite a lot, but a lot of it didn't set well.

It’s one of the greatest gay movies, certainly not the greatest. Beautiful story, beautiful scenery, beautiful actors. Everything and everyone was just too gorgeous.

It had become a classic, on par with BBM.

Armie ruined it and you know it.

Just wait for the sequels and see how the story goes and...that’s it, I guess.

Anyone who's read the book already knows how the story goes.

A sequel has the potential to ruin everything.

Mildred, please.

I'm outa here.

The movie plays better in the French dub.

horribly overrated twee travelogue with an Instagram "retro" aesthetic: of course dumb contemporary audiences loved it! Armie whatshisname was horrid, the french sounding kid was too enamored with his own acting. I liked the mom, who secretly despised those 3 twerps she was forced to spend the summer with.

I tried watching it again, but....turgid, dull, terrible. Like a Gordon Merrick novel on screen.

I enjoyed the movie, although the book was better. There are some scenes where Armie looks fairly young and others where he looks like he's over 40, which felt kind of awkward. I also wish some scenes from the book were in the movie like where Elio says "Oliver, I worship you."

I don't really understand the idea for the sequel though because in the book, Elio and Oliver don't meet for another 15 years...

Awful wankfest of a film

It got a lot of plaudits for it's soundtrack. I thought it was okay, but hated the two songs written for the movie.

However, there was one scene I loved. The party when the dj suddenly spins the Psychedelic Furs song. I thought that was a great choice and it was one of the few scenes I found believable and identifiable. I thought it was the turning point of the movie where I was suddenly gonna get involved and start to like it. Didn't happen.

[quote]Armie ruined it and you know it.

This is the simple truth. He was completely miscast in the role.

Looks way older than 24 and his acting was not up to par with Chalamet.

The French actor (Quebecois?) who dubs him makes him a better actor. I will see if Armie is better in Portuguese and Spanish and report back.

[quote] including Arnie Hammer’s character being hired and flown to Italy to do basically nothing but lay in the sun, swim, and ride his bike by a professor who also seems to do nothing.

He is a grad student working with professor on a project over summer. It makes sense.

And the movie makes plenty of references to them working, but obviously no one wants to watch those scenes, so they spend more time with Oliver and Elio which is the point of the film (and even then Oliver usually has some text with him that he has to read)

I don't think Hammer gave a bad performance but he definitely came off as too old. (was the age of 24 ever mentioned in the movie?). With their contrast in looks, it almost appeared as if the father was secretly pimping out his son. Had they cast a 24yr old actor who looked 24 it might have seemed more credible to me.

^^I can believe a 17yr old boy coming to terms with his sexuality and being all hot for Armie Hammer as the character looked and was played. (I certainly would have been). What I found hard to believe was the father's acceptance of it,

The archaeology was ridiculous.

even the much lauded final heart to heart between Elio and his super-accepting dad (in Italy. In 1983. Sure, Jan) was creepy. It sure looked like the intro for one of those FamilyDick pornos. Ewww.

I just rented it on Amazon & I didn't like it either. Its a nice story but I thought the movie was so boring. I also didn't like the fact that Armie Hammer looks 30+ and TImothy Chalamet looked like he was at most 16 in the movie.

R26 the daddy was a bit unctuous

don't bother trying to start a cmbyn thread, the pedo trolls descend like vultures and ruin every one.

Love the "Mystery of Love" song but that's about it. Another "great gay love story" told between sexual bouts with women and about two men who don't even seem to particularly like each other much.

[quote]was the age of 24 ever mentioned in the movie?

No, that's true. The character was 24 in the book but his age was never said in the movie, probably because they knew Armie's ass did not look 24. Still, traditionally grad students are 20-somethings, just a few years older than college students.

This is one dull, superficial thread

Literally several thousands of posts have already been written about that book and movie here r32. What r5 said.

Chalamet behaving not acting. Hammer not behaving not acting. Not as good as book.

TimO'Tay! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

[quote]even the much lauded final heart to heart between Elio and his super-accepting dad (in Italy. In 1983. Sure, Jan) was creepy.

ITA. Pure fantasy. Also, a cut scene in the movie has the parents getting off on hearing the boys going at it. It apparently inspires them to have an afternoon fuck-fest themselves. WTF? Sick. That's not in the book, so I wonder who's brilliant idea it was. Voyeurism + incest = not charming at all.

Agree that the chemistry was not established between the characters. But neither was it in the book. So much is left unsaid or assumed between them. Lots of angst. They barely grunt at each other and yet we are supposed to believe this is a great love. It's more like a summer crush. And yet the father, with his sappy speech, acts like the affair was some incredible, deep connection that may never happen again in their lives. Mary!

Also agree that Armie was miscast. Too old and too waspy looking. I didn't buy that someone that gorgeous would be a nerdy grad student. I think Armie got the role because Luca wants to fuck him. It's really that simple. Luca can't have him, so the next best thing is to play puppet master--- make Armie spend the summer with him, walk around shirtless with his balls hanging out of short shorts, and do gay love scenes. Typical director, getting off on making his own fantasies come to life.

Aaron Tveit is still who I think of as Oliver.

I think R36 nailed it.

I like it for what it is. It's essentially a slightly more contemporary Maurice. Pure pomp and fantasy.

I hated it. And I didn't even see it.

I have not seen it but the father is super accepting? in '83?

In 2018 in Italy the most homophobic of European countries if a teen told his parents he was gay he would be better off setting off an atomic bomb in the kitchen.

[quote]I have not seen it but the father is super accepting? in '83?

Probably gay.

[quote]Aaron Tveit is still who I think of as Oliver.

I first saw Aaron as Tripp Van Der Bilt in Gossip Girl while I was reading CMBYN for the first time, and he became Oliver. I always cast novels in my head. (Elio was a cute Jewish boy I'd known in my teenagehood, not an actor.)

op is an asshole of misery.

[quote] I saw no physical or romantic chemistry between the two leads. (Unlike, say, Moonlight

Always with the Moonlight comparisons *eye roll* If you saw chemistry between those characters and not the ones in CMBYN, however mileages vary, then I’d say you were actively not looking for it.

It appeals to people who fantasize about a particular kind of square bourgeois lifestyle, who know nothing about art but have a small collection of coffee table art books and who think the dullards in the film are the height of sophistication. It's an artistically bland film with no real life or spark. Pleasant on the eye, though.

Timmy appeared to be having a very good time while naked with Armie.

r46, go jump in the toilet.

I agree with much of what's been said here. Armie looked way to old for the part and that introduced unwelcome tones of pedophilia to the story. Further, that notion was reinforced with the casting of Chalamet whose skinny, gangly body type made one wonder if he was closer to sixteen. I vaguely remembered the peach scene in the book and it neither bothered nor enchanted me there. It did bother me a bit in the movie and I think that was because the age difference had been muddled by the casting choices. I was born in 1952 and yes, I'm aware that smoking indoors was quite prevalent at the time the movie was set. For my money the director's decision to include so many smoking scenes only added to the sordidness of the affair. The casting choices (and dialogue) for the prissy Dad and distant chainsmoking Mom added little of value to the story. A gay director (the late Franco Zeffirelli comes to mind) would have known how to cast this film and tell this story.

I quite liked CMBYN when I first saw it. Then I saw God's Own Country. GOC was so perfect in every way that when I watched CMBYN recently, I saw all the usual complaints. Armie Hammer seems too old, Charmalee bounces around too much, and it just didn't hang together the way it did the first time around. I still likes the peach scene. that is just purely charming and real. I tried the peach thing when I was 15 so naturally I thought it was genius to put it in the film.

[quote]I first saw Aaron as Tripp Van Der Bilt in Gossip Girl while I was reading CMBYN for the first time, and he became Oliver.

He would have been 24 when he first appeared in GG. Makes sense.

OP is a classic self-hating gay man, who has spent his life worshipping his mom at the expense of himself. That's why you identified so strongly with that bit-part girl character, and why you found the more intimate sexual scenes between 2 guys so gross. It's a common story, maybe for all of us gays. Too close to our moms. Given the unconscious message to hate our maleness, our masculinity, our own sensual desires and enjoyments, our right to be self-centred. As for the movie in question, it's fine. Not a classic, not terrible. And that's me done

[quote]Timmy appeared to be having a very good time while naked with Armie.

I don’t think he was the only one.

I only found Armie too be good during the scenes in which he’s directly sexually engaging with Elio in the second half. He was suitably cast as someone not as dumb as he looks, or canny enough to mid his shyness with mystery. But as a character, he was not interesting.

Because he’s kind of big and sexy and playful - though, weirdly, without being erotic - when he sucks Elio off or teases him he becomes more alive.

Precious Elio and his affected father were not bad people but I didn’t like them at all.

[quote]Armie ruined it and you know it.

ABSOLUTELY. I’ll give that Jezebel writer some credit for a being spot about Hammer’s career. Stupid name and 0.0 percent charisma. He sucked the life out of every scene. They had even less chemistry. I almost felt sorry for young Timothee being stuck with him as a co-star.

These directors really need to start looking harder for capable gay actors to play gay parts. All I saw were two straight dudes playing gay chicken.

I hated the novel so i didn't bother with the film. Saying that the novel is magnificent in its writting, unfortunately i found the characters unsufferable. Elio is annoying as hell and Oliver is simply a coward. But i didn't find any problem with the father being accepting, yes it's 1983 but not everybody was blatantly homophobic in 1983. It's like one of Michael Cunninhan novels where the old gay character survives even when everything is against him, and they younger commits suicide even when he lives in a more accepting time.

It's the cinematic equivalent of those Victor Gadino covers of Gordon Merrick novels. Tasteful, bourgoise, "arty", bland.

[quote]A gay director (the late Franco Zeffirelli comes to mind) would have known how to cast this film and tell this story

Luca Guadagnino IS gay...

I've seen the film three times now. The second time was probably the best experience I had because I was going through a breakup and I felt a lot of the emotions that Elio was feeling in the film way more. It was a much more cathartic and visceral experience.

When I saw it the third time, some of the pain had worn off so I guess I enjoyed it as a nice fantasy---going to Italy, doing nothing all day except eating food, reading books, swimming, etc.

It's a very dreamy movie so I can understand why some people might not like it.

R58: i would never have guessed that given his comments about wanting Elio being married with a woman in the sequel or something like that (like if the novel was not a big closet case panflet)

R58 people here just wanna shit on a movie most people liked and got critical acclaim. Let them have it.

R60 Luca is openly gay and has had a partner for 7 years now. He just does things differently.

R58, but he's not late.

@R62 . Yes, he does things differently than most gay directors. His highest priority is to entertain the (mostly straight) masses.

[quote]It had become a classic, on par with BBM.

R9 is fucking high.

And retarded. Don’t forget retarded.

CMBYN > BBM

I saw it at the cinema last fall and found it puzzling but enjoyable enough.

I watched it again last weekend. Firstly, had a hard time getting through it. Also, still think Armie Hammer is miscast and wooden. Still liked Chalamet but didn’t think much of him as a piano prodigy. All of it’s weaknesses seemed the same, only glaringly so.

But it also has an air of not really knowing what it’s about. It’s a bit diffuse.

R66 is even stupider than R9.

Do keep posting though, you’ll only continue to prove my point.

BBM is maybe my least favorite gay movie of all time. I say "maybe" because I haven't seen all the really cheap ones.

But I'm sure Heath is glad to know you're here to defend the POS, r68.

The interesting thing to me is that this could have easily been a straight story. The graduate student has a love affair with his mentor's daughter but later decides to marry his longtime finance instead, leaving the young summer fling heartbroken. In that case, they'd still have hidden the relationship from the teen's parents, who were hosting the graduate student. I'm glad the author made the story about a gay relationship, but without all the fear and shame that accompanies gay relationships in some stories. Internal homophobia pops up only subtly, when Elio's family gets the phone call from Oliver at the end of the movie, and you realize that Oliver has chosen to suppress his homosexuality for a more socially-acceptable, traditional life.

When I watched, an age difference didn't jump out at me. I saw Armie Hammer as a young grad student. Elio didn't look younger than his intended age to me.

^R70 = blind.

[quote] And of course the peach scene, which I just found gross and gag-worthy.

Blanche!

Somehow it didn't even make Italy look pretty and that is a feat in itself. It looked like the flat countryside of any rural town in Georgia.

Pauline Kael would've hated it for its bland approach.

That's because he chose the Pianura Padana, instead of the Liguria seaside where the novel is set. Guadagnino lives in the some places the movie was shot but i agree with R73: Lombardy countryside is relaxing and nice, but compared to so many other breathtaking italian settings it was just meh.

Cutting15-20 minutes would have improved it hugely.

[quote] I still likes the peach scene. that is just purely charming and real.

r50 Him fucking a Peach I find believable. Oliver finding the Peach filled with cold cum and then eating it to show his devotion while Elio cries from shame isn't charming or believable though.

He never actually eats it in the movie, he does in the book.

[quote]When I watched, an age difference didn't jump out at me. I saw Armie Hammer as a young grad student. Elio didn't look younger than his intended age to me.

Well, you must not cunt for a living.

Luca makes Michael Bay look like Ingmar Bergman.

Agree with R73 and R74. So many more stunning places in Italy. The pond where Elio like to swim looks like a stagnant mud hole full of mosquitos.

can you imagine if he'd shot this movie in Sicily? Wanderlust porn for the ages!

"it could easily have been a straight story" Really R70

[quote]Chalamet is completely overrated.

You’re overrated.

The best film of the 21st century and I'm not kidding and I'm not a teenage girl.

R84 get out more

In Italy EVERYONE is homophobic. Even all the 17th century haute couture queens in the Vatican.

And when was the precise moment Franco Z died?

Thought you pedos were done talking about this pedo film.

Lousy film. The most overhyped piece of dreck that I’ve seen all year. We’ll all be making fun of this POS in a few years.

OP, you're not in the minority.

You belong to the majority of Americans, who are also judgmental, ignorant, self-righteous and pearl-clutching homophobes.

People like Elio and Oliver DO exist, in America and abroad; even back in the '80s. Just because you haven't been exposed to it doesn't mean it's untrue. It just means you're uneducated and sheltered by a Puritanical culture.

No, CMBYN did not depict rape or sexual harassment, so it has nothing to do with #MeToo. You're distorting and twisting the story just to discourage and disparage gays because you're a barely disguised, socially conservative TROLL.

You ARE in the minority of cultured and educated film critics, however. Honest people who aren't homophobic mostly liked the film.

r84 i assume the only other 21st century film you've seen outside of this one is Norbit?

CMBYN is a masterpiece of cinema that will be studied for years to come long after some of you cynical old crones have wilted away.

CMBYN is my all time favorite film.

It’s art, so I get why dullards and retards don’t like it.

Recent comments suggest that the adolescent brigade of CMBYN sympathizers have arrived. To them I must point out the obvious. Critics of this film are not homophobes, they are bad- film-ophobes and, judging from your naive defense of this fatally compromised film, they have seen a lot more gay film and art than you have.

R86: That's not true, that's not even true in Uganda or Saudi Arabia, and even less in a western european country. It's true the Italia didn't evolve as well as other heavily catholic countries like Portugal, Spain or Ireland but they are very far from being that homophobic. And anyway, you only need one person to not fit that sterotype to get that father's reaction. And not, this could not be an straight story, Aciman is straight but the novel was an homage to Proust (like his following novel was an homage to Dostoyevski) so no, it was a gay storyline from the idea of the novel (wich is quite curious, because it's a first novel and it's a romance, gay characters are very common right now for straight writers but generally in stories with a lot of main characters)

Aciman is straight? Didn't he say that he's had two loves, one of them a man, and that he doesn't believe in labels?

R95: I didn't knew that

[quote]CMBYN is a masterpiece of cinema that will be studied for years to come long after some of you cynical old crones have wilted away.

Only by you and the other pedos who’ve infested DL and only here in this thread, not by anyone or anywhere else in the real world, pedo R91.

R97: Insulting other people don't make your post true (and you should look on dictionary the meaning of pedophile because you obvioulsy don't know what it means)

Most of what keeps the movie from being a "masterpiece of cinema" was present in the book. There should have been Olio in the end instead of tragedy. But that's not the movie's fault. Could a younger-looking actor have been cast as Oliver? Sure. But given the chemistry Timmy and Armie had, that's a forgivable filmic error, at least to those of us who aren't of the "pedo!" shrieking persuasion. Their pairing made the movie.

Well, the end of the novel is not tragic. It's not a happy ending but it's not tragic in any mean. What happens with Elio and the decisions he took are barely there, and Oliver is a coward but that's not a tragedy either

Aciman said it was an open ending. Oliver could have stayed at the end.

Oliver didn't stay at the end, though. Does having the choice of staying (which I don't really believe he had, given the choice he made) take it outside the realm of tragedy? Oliver certainly acted out his "fatal flaw," which is what I have always understood tragedy to depend upon in its denouement. But I know there are more scholarly lit queens than I here.

There might be some Italians sympathetic TODAY towards homosexuals but it still is a terrible misfortune that happens to OTHER families.

People are talking about the book's ending r102, not the movie. The book ends with Oliver and Elio reuniting years later, and Aciman said he purposely left it open ended whether Oliver plans on staying or not.

I find the fact that Oliver didn't stay with Elio at the end of their summer together, whether in the movie or the book, to be pretty tragic.

I know a pedo when I read your posts, R98.

And your being insulted by my posts doesn’t make them lies.

R106: I'm not insulted by your post (i don't even like the novel and don't even watch the film) i'm insulted by your ignorance. You seems like the typical dumb that thinks insulting people is make a point. And no, you don't know what's the mean of pedophile or you wouldn't be use it to describe the film, unless of course you are James Woods

[quote]CMBYN is a masterpiece of cinema that will be studied for years to come long after some of you cynical old crones have wilted away.

I think it’s the greatest gay film ever made.

R97 I'm not a pedo in the slightest and using that as an insult tells me all I need to know about your Trump-ian maturity level. R108 you are correct. We are lucky to have it. The haters can go cuddle and cry with their worn out copies of Too Wong Foo or whatever minor cinema gets them off.

I'm glad Oliver left.

there's no chemistry between the two in the movie: hammer and chalamet act in two different movies.

Who da fuck cares about this shit? I DEMAND we discuss the electrifying deathbed kiss in Wings!!!!!!!

[quote]It’s art

How so?

R111 Did we watch the same movie? I thought their chemistry was off the charts (and I’m no Chalamet fan).

But Wings is a pretty stupendous film so that final kiss destroys you.

R111 Hammer can't act and Chalamet just behaves.

[quote]I hated the novel so i didn't bother with the film

I hated the novel, too, so was late in seeing the film. There were parts of the film I really liked - I thought it was well filmed - but the pretentiousness of the novel intruded too much into the film.

As R75 says, it was about half an hour too long and I was waiting for the film to end - but having said that, the final scene with him staring into the fire was absolutely fantastic and redeemed a lot of what I disliked about the film. Who hasn't been in the situation where you're devastated and try as you might you can't think your way through it? It was a brilliant ending.

R58, why you bury me?

People not connecting isn't a tragedy. People starving, being mutilated, being bombed--that's a tragedy.

r119 To the kind of people who think this film is a work of art, not connecting to a fellow middle class square whose knickers you want to get into is probably the most tragic thing they can think of.

[quote]You belong to the majority of Americans, who are also judgmental, ignorant, self-righteous and pearl-clutching homophobes.

You got all of this from one post? Well, you seem to be holding up a mirror based on the tone of your reply. EXCEPT for the homophobia accusation simply because he didn’t jizz all over his TV from this snore of a movie. Not liking a movie with a gay storyline means he’s homophobic? Fucking ridiculous. Talking about pearl clutching. The online-gay “community” uses that word to describe anything that doesn’t fall in line with their opinions about anything gay-related.

And I imagine you’re one of those queens who's tired of EVERYTHING being racist.

[quote]Chalamet is completely overrated.

Maybe--but NOT in this film.

How can "pearl-clutching" be retired?

I watched the movie for the first time last night. I thought it was horrible - I couldn't make it to the end. Chalamet has the body of my 13 year old nephew. Hammer played the role of a sleazy pedophile. The cinematography was its only redeeming value.

Lesbian here. I was shocked how young Chalamet looked in this film given the role & romance. He looks like a mid-teens boy, and Armie looked thirty plus, so yes, the overall effect is creepy.

I absolutely hated the fake as all hell “acceptance” speech from the dad.

Doesn’t hold up on 2nd viewing because all the tension is gone.

I felt bad for the mother - stuck with her husband who regretted not acting on his sexual impulses and presumably married her for her aweson house

I found both leads too pissy by half and didn't root for this so-called "great love". They looked like they didn't even like each other much for most of the movie.

Add in the cum peach and the vomit kiss and I was repulsed by it all. But Timothee is cute, sure.

[quote] Recent comments suggest that the adolescent brigade of CMBYN sympathizers have arrived.

It never fails. CMBYN/Timothée/Charmie stans are like mosquitoes. They lurk and wait for their moment to pounce in EVERY related thread. By the time this one ends, it will be all about Liz and her evil doings against Timmy and Armie.

BTW, I thought the movie was meh as well and that the chemistry between the two main characters was lacking, particularly with Armie.

I liked the movie the first time. But on subsequent viewing, the cracks start to show - some stiff acting, awkward-cringe scenes (Armie Hammer running up to the random people in the street and dancing like an extra in the Wake Me Up Before You Go Go video, for one) and some bits that don't make much sense, maybe because of edits. The whole thing is so pretty it's easy to be so dazzled that you don't notice the flaws at first, but they're there.

[quote]I was also surprised at a couple of the explicit sexual scenes.

Those were all straight, OP

R94 Italy isn’t “heavily catholic”...it’s .pagan.

Say what you will but this film was loved by the critics. the only thing I found odd was that the town center was empty in summertime in Italy?

I always compare CMBYN to Y Tu Mama, Tambien

Similar plot lines in a way-- two ostensibly hetero boys in an intense flirtation that leads to a sexual encounter.

In YTMT, which feels more authentic, that sexual encounter leads to extreme shame, embarrassment and effectively ends what had been a very close bromance style friendship

In CMBYN, the two inexplicably continue it and embark on a romance ... that dies off when one of them leaves and then gets married, breaking the other one's heart.

Many have suggested that casting CMBYN with actors who looked closer in age would have made it seem like a teen movie. But YTMT proves otherwise, as the two leads were supposed to have been around 18 or so and looked it.

I had read the book first and Oliver and Elio seem more like peers--Elio is in awe of Oliver's looks and ease with the world, which he attributes to Oliver's "Americanness" (Elio is due to go to college in the US and is stressed over not knowing how to be an American.) Oliver is taken by Elio's worldliness and ease with classical music and classical history. The crush seems to go both ways, though in the movie, we're not all that aware of how Oliver feels.

Hence the unequal casting seems to detract from the story told in the book, but that happens a lot with movies and the resulting story-- about a younger teens crush on a man works as just that. Sort of. When Oliver overtly flirts with Elio, it comes as a surprise. There has been no sign of any interest previously.

The other bit about the movie (and the book for that matter) that bothered me is that neither Elio nor Oliver expressed any remorse, shock, shame, about what they were doing. For two nominally straight guys, an intense and very sexual affair with a bromantic crush would have felt like being on an out of control roller coaster and yet there was no sign either of them every acknowledged that what they were doing was very much beyond the pale, especially for the mid-80s.

So that bit rang very untrue.

When I watched the movie for the first time, I didn't think much of it. However, it lingered and I couldn't get it out of my head.

In trying to understand why that is, I found the following two video essays that explain the movie's appeal pretty well.

Video essay 1

Video essay 2

I originally jumped on the fandom bandwagon back in December of 2017, when I stumbled across YT videos of TC and AH interviews promoting the movie. I was mesmerized by the former's rather than the latter's charisma. So, I became extremely eager to see CMBYN, but found that AH didn't connect. At all. It wasn't that he was a bad actor, but his chemistry was sorely lacking with the movie's protagonist.

This older thread is a stark comparison to what happens when DL allows cunt frauen to invade a gay forum over an extended period of time. The comments here mostly reflect us gays rather than straight women in their 30s, 40s and 50s who exploited the anonymity of DL.

Agree that the two leads didn't have any chemistry. The most powerful scene for me was the one between father and son at the end, I found myself tearing up.

Death to the fraus

Shit - I had a "summer romance" with a grad student when I was 14 and he was 24, in the 70s. Totally consensual. I knew what I was doing. I guess I don't get why relationships like this can't ever be considered in a positive light.

No big deal, it was wonderful.

I enjoyed it, and thought it was realistic in its sort of insularity. A love affair that could only have happened in a very specific set of circumstances, the opposite of a broad appeal story where everyone belongs.

The book involves a young man 17 going on 18 and a 24 year old grad student, which feels like a fairer match - I interpreted Armie's character as a 24 year old, but he did look quite a bit older, so I understand why people felt uncomfortable.

Oy! The book was in serious need of editing. I feel bad having to skim through the remainder of what started out to be well written and well paced.

PAGING THE CMBYN CYBERSTALKER!

Your grease fire is waiting in the lobby.

André Aciman World Tour

R142 you're right, I stopped reading about 60-70 percent of the way through.

Partly because it went up its own ass. Oh yeah, and the pooping scene.

I agree with OP. I thought it was dull and not really believable. The book, though slow, was much better.

I loved it. Kind of porn for the intellectual Italia-phile brigade which makes it right up James Ivory's street.

I didn't get the big deal over T Chalamet, though he was fine, and didn't understand why Armie Hammer's performance which is of a similar quality was criticised.

Hated the heart-to-heart with the dad, given how hyped it was. Every gesture was rehearsed to death. When he picked up his whisky and drank I cringed.

*I meant porn as in the fantasy indulgence of the decadent scenery and setting and all book chat and classical music

[quote]Also agree that Armie was miscast. Too old and too waspy looking. I didn't buy that someone that gorgeous would be a nerdy grad student. I think Armie got the role because Luca wants to fuck him. It's really that simple. Luca can't have him, so the next best thing is to play puppet master--- make Armie spend the summer with him, walk around shirtless with his balls hanging out of short shorts, and do gay love scenes. Typical director, getting off on making his own fantasies come to life.

Who else could have played Oliver? James Ivory had Shia LeBeouf lined up, who would have been fine matched with TC, if not quite as handsome or charming enough, if that matters. Who would have looked roughly 25 and possibly Jewish?

Logan Lerman?

The reviews for Aciman's follow up, Find Me, are not very kind.

I received an ARC. The character of the mother does not match the mother in the film.

[quote] Who else could have played Oliver?

There's an ocean of unknown and struggling actors out there who could've played the role. When Luca first interviewed AH, he looked much younger and fit the description per the novel. Aciman describes an attractive character with a seemingly icy and difficult to read glare. It was some six years later that the actual movie began production and he'd aged noticeably by then.

Ironically, I think it was their real-life chemistry during interviews and awards season that actually made the movie famous, rather than just the movie by itself.

R149

Yes, Shia Labeouf is physically closer to Timothée Chalamet.

But Armie Hammer is much more “la muvi star”.

I thought Armie was fine. It's not much of a part. He played charming but weirdly reserved well enough.

I hated the Michael Stuhlbarg speech the second time around.

So much stupidity distilled into one moronic thread.

The locations were the star of an otherwise disappointing film assembled by a mutual admiration society of the too easily pleased.

Armie's miscasting as a 24 yr old grad student turned it into Lolita 2.0

It didn't help that one of Oliver's first scenes was spending his day playing cards with retirees. Yeah, THAT'LL make him seem like a good match for a teenage boy! They should have dressed him in Bermuda shorts and a golf cap!

[quote] Somehow it didn’t even make Italy look pretty and that is a feat in itself. It looked like the flat countryside of any rural town in Georgia.

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who saw that. I understand there was a lot of rain while they were filming, but dammit at least drive to film outside where there are some hills and interesting landscape features!

R158

Nella mitologia greca classica la Pianura Padana è uno dei teatri dove si svolge una parte delle cosiddette "fatiche di Eracle" o Bran come chiamato dai Celti. La decima e undicesima fatica di Eracle interessano la valle del Po considerato dai Greci come un fiume che nasce nella terra degli Iperborei.

Nella decima fatica definita "Il bestiame di Gerione" nel suo ritorno dall'occidente iberico durante la traversata delle Alpi Liguri, Eracle "tagliò una strada dove potessero comodamente passare il suo esercito e le sue salmerie; disperse anche le bande di briganti che infestavano il passo e poi entrò nell'attuale Gallia cisalpina." Nell'undicesima fatica definita "I pomi delle Esperidi" "Eracle, che non sapeva quale direzione prendere per giungere al giardino delle Esperidi, camminò attraverso l'Illiria fino al fiume Po, patria del profetico dio del mare Nereo.

Quando Eracle finalmente giunse al Po, le ninfe del fiume, figlie di Zeus e di Temi, lo condussero presso Nereo addormentato. Eracle agguantò il canuto dio del Mare e senza lasciarselo sfuggire di mano nonostante le sue continue proteiche metamorfosi (Proteo), lo costrinse a riverargli il modo per impossessarsi delle mele d'oro

According to a document I had access to, with many other films on the list, CMBYN was mostly watched by middle- aged gay men, Latino women in their 30s and straight couples over 50. It figures, it looks, sounds and feels like a totally outdated gay fantasy of the 80s pandering to straights, something no youth today would care to waste time on.

Let's not forget the full hetero sex scene and the pan to the window gay scene. I mean, come on, can anyone take this trash seriously? Even James Ivory didn't like this shit and he wrote the script.

Agree with general consensus.

In the book, Elio was fairly precocious and Oliver was somewhat provincial and so they seemed to be much closer in age to the point where I was not all that aware of the age gap until the end when Oliver announced he was getting married.

As for the movie, two things can be simultaneously true: Hammer and Chalamet had excellent chemistry, both on and off screen, and that made the movie work at some level, but it also turned the story into something very different as the age gap was pretty glaring.

Had Oliver been played by someone who looked like a kid, someone closer in age to Chalamet, then it would have been a very different movie, something more teen romance-y, which could have gone anywhere from a High School Musical feel to Romeo and Juliet, depending.

It would have been a very different movie in any case.

Also curious how a certain type of female has become OBSESSED with the movie and its stars, very similar to our QAF obsessives and their assertions, 15 years after the fact, that the two stars of the US version of the show were still romantically entangled.

Also curious that the plot of that show actually was about a 30 year old and 17 year old, but the fact that the actor playing the 30 year old looked much younger made it less creepy in that regard.

Since I am almost always disappointed when I see a really popular film (Titanic, The Hunger Games, Gravity, Pretty Woman--Pulp Fiction was OK), I will probably never see this. Nothing in this thread has piqued my interest.

God's Own Country was a far superior film.

^^ seconded

Embrasse mon cul maigre. ^^

In the dark with his penna in my mouth he can pass for twenty two.