In this review of Call Me by Your Name, Alex Heeney explores how Guadagnino captures what first love feels like, in all its fumbling, awkward, confusing, terrifying, joyous glory. This is an excerpt from the ebook Call Me by Your Name: A Special Issue. To read the entire article, purchase a copy of the book here.
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Luca Guadagnino’s new film, Call Me by Your Name, is also his sweetest, calmest, and loveliest. It sneaks up on you. For 17-year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and grad student Oliver (Armie Hammer), it’s both lust at first sight and a winding journey to each other — on bikes and in the water, through physical teasing and gentle intellectual one-upmanship in the Northern Italian countryside, summer 1983. Throughout, Guadagnino captures what first love feels like, in all its fumbling, awkward, confusing, terrifying, joyous glory.
