Our writers pick their favourite scenes from the second half of Call Me by Your Name and write about what makes them great. Read part 1 here. This is the fifth piece in our Special Issue on Call Me by Your Name. Read the rest of the issue here.

Discover one film you didn’t know you needed:

Not in the zeitgeist. Not pushed by streamers.
But still easy to find — and worth sitting with.
And a guide to help you do just that.

→ Send me the guide

On Tuesday, we published a group of six analyses of our favourite scenes from the first half of Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name. We’re back again with part 2, featuring five dissections of key moments in the film’s second half (ordered chronologically), during which Elio’s (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver’s (Armie Hammer) relationship is consummated, and then begins to deepen.

---

1. “I’m glad you came.”

Elio and Oliver spend the first half of Call Me by Your Name dancing around each other’s desires. They want each other, but they are both too scared of rejection to act. Elio confesses his feelings first, but it takes Oliver a while to let go of his inhibitions and make a move of his own — he leaves a note on Elio’s desk: “Grow up. I’ll see you at midnight.” When midnight arrives, they navigate their newly granted permission to explore each other’s bodies in a scene that is at turns awkward, intimate, sexy, funny, and sweet.

Guadagnino does not give his characters an easy escape from confronting their fears. When the pair enter Oliver’s room, Elio admits he’s nervous; the shy, wordless smile that Oliver gives him in response tells us that he is, too. As they work out how to begin touching each other, Guadagnino refuses to cut away to a different angle. Everything plays out in a wide shot that leaves no room for Elio and Oliver to hide: we see every uncertain shift in their bodies, and their every failed attempt to move closer.

[clickToTweet tweet=”‘They navigate their newly granted permission to explore each other’s bodies in a scene that is at turns awkward, intimate, sexy, funny, and sweet.'” quote=”‘They navigate their newly granted permission to explore each other’s bodies in a scene that is at turns awkward, intimate, sexy, funny, and sweet.'”]

Weeks of longing for each other held a certain agonising pleasure; they could imagine how it would feel to be intimate with one another without having to put in the work needed to achieve that intimacy. Now, they are no longer imagining, and it is painfully awkward for them (and for us) to have that process slowly drawn out over the course of a long sequence. Elio cannot take it and eventually bites the bullet: throwing himself at Oliver, he closes the gap between them all at once. He collapses into his lover, hugs him, and climbs his six-foot-five frame. Oliver laughs; the distance between them has finally collapsed.

I look back on this scene in much the same way that I imagine Elio — days, weeks, months, years later — will look back on it: it’s the small, unexpected moments that stick out the most. When Elio first starts desiring Oliver, he is attracted to him as a physical object. He wants the sexual gratification of being with Oliver. But as the beautiful stranger gradually reveals his own vulnerabilities, their desire for each other becomes the desire to be with that person, rather than simply a desire to have his body.

We do not see Elio and Oliver in the act of lovemaking, but nothing could be more intimate than their shared giddy laughter as they accidentally slam the bedroom door shut and fear jolting Elio’s parents awake. United as an ‘us’, they share a secret that they wish to keep from the rest of the world. Nothing could be sweeter than Oliver’s concerned whisper: “Does this make you happy?” — a simple question which reveals that his interest in Elio runs deeper than any sexual desires of his own. Nothing could be sexier than the gentle, teasing touch of Elio’s foot on top of Oliver’s, exploring his lover’s body, and Oliver doing the same. – Orla Smith

[wcm_restrict]

---

2. The morning after

We might not see what takes place between Elio and Oliver the first time they have sex. But from the force of the sequences on either side of that event, we know something meaningful has transpired. Before the sun rises on the morning after, Guadagnino presents a series of tangled poses, knotted limbs, heads leaning into each other, and Oliver wiping his chest clean with his billowy blue shirt. The editing here is beautifully paced, sound reduced to just the two men’s breathing. We are enveloped in the sensation of a long, slow night of lovemaking, and we anticipate that Elio and Oliver will be closer than ever before.

But as the sun rises, a space has opened up between them again. While Oliver’s arm is draped around Elio’s shoulder, his fingers on his chest, Elio stirs. He sits up, not saying a word, and only gives the slightest glance to Oliver who smiles and instinctively moves his body towards Elio’s. He’s happy. He feels close to Elio and expects some acknowledgment of the night before — a word, a kiss, a hug, or more. But Elio’s move away from Oliver tells another story. “Let’s go swimming,” he suggests, looking anxious, even a little irritated, and gets up without looking back.

[clickToTweet tweet=”‘As Elio disentangles himself, Oliver’s uncertainty takes the lead, allowing Hammer to reconfigure this object of desire into a full flesh and blood man.'” quote=”‘As Elio disentangles himself, Oliver’s uncertainty takes the lead, allowing Hammer to reconfigure this object of desire into a full flesh and blood man.'”]

Armie Hammer brings Oliver into focus in an unexpected way here. He reveals Oliver’s insecurities like a lightning bolt. We suddenly see what we hadn’t seen before, that just because Elio has seen him as cool and confident, this is not who Oliver is. His face becomes softer, open, and more vulnerable. When Elio is in a hurry to leave the bed in the morning, Oliver looks confused, and patently disappointed. His smile crashes. He seems to be asking himself if he’s made a mistake. In just a few gestures, Hammer shows us how the stakes have suddenly shifted. While Guadagnino has tethered us to Elio, we’ve had less access to Oliver’s interior life. But here, it seems clear that if Elio is at least partly experimenting with Oliver to discover himself, for Oliver this is no game. While we expected sex to be a big deal for Elio, it’s perhaps more surprising to see how much Oliver has also risked.

Hammer extends Oliver’s vulnerability throughout the morning. At the river, as they swim at opposite ends of the frame, he is both physically and emotionally exposed. “Are you going to hold what happened last night against me?” he asks, clearly feeling punished by Elio’s silence and distance. Back in their rooms, Oliver glances at the rumpled bed. Hammer’s quizzical expression seems to ask: “Was it real? Did Elio really want me?” As Elio temporarily disentangles himself, Oliver’s uncertainty takes the lead, allowing Hammer to reconfigure this object of desire into a full flesh and blood man. – Joanna Di Mattia

---

3. Touching the peach is like touching him

“Touching the apricot was like touching him,” Elio remembers in an especially erotic passage of André Aciman’s novel Call Me by Your Name. He’s been watching Oliver on the ladder picking apricots and observes how the curve of his ass resembles the sensual arc of the fruit. Later, once he and Oliver are lovers, Elio masturbates using a peach — the curves of the larger fruit, even more plump and fleshy. In bringing this scene to life on screen, Luca Guadagnino makes this connection between Elio touching the fruit and touching Oliver explicit. It recreates Aciman’s daring act of desire with delicacy, good humour, and tremendous intensity. It’s a scene of fluctuating emotions and tones, a scene perfectly calibrated within a film sensitively attuned to the vicissitudes of first love, and especially the doubts and distortions it creates.

Elio’s hunger for Oliver — after they have finally had sex — is ripe. As he wanders restlessly around the house, he picks up two perfectly formed peaches. Taking the stairs to his cloistered attic refuge, Elio is bored, horny, and vulnerable. He lies down on the mattress and eats one peach, but for the other, he discovers another purpose. The camera’s focus is initially on the violence of the removal of the stone — Elio’s finger penetrating the soft flesh and pulling it out. We see him considering the shape of the fruit and the hole, and then his hand moves it down to his groin. Guadagnino keeps the camera on Elio’s face, interested in the emotional course that has brought him to this point. Chalamet’s facial expression, as he manipulates the fruit, traverses indolence, lust, surprise, relief, and then shame.

[clickToTweet tweet=”‘Ultimately, this isn’t about the comedy of fucking a piece of fruit, but the urgency of Elio’s and Oliver’s togetherness and the complexity of feelings it unearths.'” quote=”‘Ultimately, this isn’t about the comedy of fucking a piece of fruit, but the urgency of Elio’s and Oliver’s togetherness and the complexity of feelings it unearths.'”]

When he’s finished masturbating, the sight of the shattered fruit, dripping with DNA evidence, fills Elio with shame. The scene shifts from an expression of his primal passion for Oliver to something else, and then something else again when Oliver finds Elio asleep. His arrival momentarily breaks some of this tension. He kisses Elio’s belly and tries to finish the blowjob he had teased at earlier that day. Finding Elio sticky he asks, “What did you do?” The lengthening of the delivery of ‘do’ reveals both Oliver’s amazement and genuine enthusiasm, confirmed by his declaration that “I wish everyone was as sick as you.” Elio thinks Oliver is making fun of him when he licks the fruit and threatens to eat it. He lashes out. When he cries, “I don’t want you to go,” Oliver seems to understand why Elio has done what he has done. In touching the peach like a lover, he’s tried to hold onto him forever, reinforced by the fierce embrace that concludes the scene.

Ultimately, this isn’t about the comedy of fucking a piece of fruit, but the urgency of Elio’s and Oliver’s togetherness and the complexity of feelings it unearths. They have fallen for each other and into each other’s bodies in a big way. In Call Me by Your Name, love is an offering of self to the other and an acceptance of the other into the self. Elio wants to absorb every part of Oliver and possess him completely. Only a gesture as seemingly outrageous as this one can do this need justice. It is, in many ways, an extension of the erotic exchange of their own names in place of the other — their bodies so supple that the space between them ceases to exist. – Joanna Di Mattia

---

4. “Parce que c’était lui, parce que c’était moi.”

A key scene within Call Me By Your Name depicts Elio and his father, Mr. Perlman, discussing the life lesson of first love and the grief when it is lost. What makes this scene uniquely powerful is the way this loss becomes a bridge between father and son, allowing them both to understand and accept each other.

Guadagnino uses long takes interspersed with few cuts to focus on the intimacy of the conversation, the frame emphasizing the closeness between father and son through this in depth conversation. The scene opens with an indirect focus, the frame centred on the reflection from the mirror above Mr. Perlman’s couch within his study. Mr. Perlman is reflected at the bottom of the shot reading over some paperwork. Suddenly Elio appears in the mirror, looking nervous about coming to talk to his father, uncertain of what it will entail — and the camera tilts down to show his father in the frame itself, rather than his reflection. The focus goes from indirect to direct, which actively and progressively welcomes the audience into the room along with Elio, like a special invitation into this private conversation. The long takes allow the audience to focus solely on the performances from these two great actors and to feel the tension building without interruption or unnecessary directorial flourishes.

Guadagnino only cuts to close ups of the characters when the conversation becomes more illuminating, or reveals a strong sense of purpose or urgency. For instance, when the father starts talking very pointedly about Elio’s special relationship with Oliver, he takes off his glasses — as if removing a barrier between himself and his son — and Guadagnino cuts to a medium close up of Mr. Perlman’s face and upper body. As the father opens up about his own past, the camera cuts to a medium shot of Elio, whose face and eyes redden as the emotional truth of his father’s words hit home.

[clickToTweet tweet=”‘Guadagnino only cuts to close ups of the characters when the conversation becomes more illuminating or reveals a strong sense of urgency.'” quote=”‘Guadagnino only cuts to close ups of the characters when the conversation becomes more illuminating or reveals a strong sense of urgency.'”]

One may view this scene as a “coming out” moment for Elio; however, because of some ambiguous revelations from Mr. Perlman, it can be viewed as a coming out moment between father and son. Mr. Perlman recognizes the love Oliver and Elio felt for one another: “You two had a special friendship. Maybe more than a friendship.” Elio receives confirmation that his father not only accepts this relationship, but recognizes his feelings as valid and valuable. Elio drops his head onto his father’s lap and starts to cry — the audience soon follows.

Mr. Perlman’s acceptance of Elio’s feelings is influenced by a confession of his own: he reveals that he, too, was close to having a similar bond, but was too afraid to pursue such a relationship. By revealing that Elio took a chance Mr. Perlman did not, the father assures Elio that he had something special with Oliver; a kind of great love we all aspire to have. There is no sense of shame or stigma. Love is normal regardless of orientation. It is the open honesty of this conversation between father and son that makes this sequence so gut wrenching and timeless. – Laura Anne Harris

---

5. Is it a video?

The extended close-up of Elio’s face that concludes Call Me by Your Name is like a video I have played on repeated loop ever since I first saw it. It is the most important sequence in a film comprised of so many utterly indispensable ones. It is difficult to look at it, but it is also impossible to turn away.

Oliver’s phone call three months after they parted has reopened a briefly sealed wound. As Elio wanders around the house, struggling to keep a lid on his feelings, we know the wound is about to bleed profusely. He eventually settles alone in front of the fireplace. He has a lot to process — the sound of Oliver’s voice; the shock news of his engagement; his own dormant yearning. There’s also the knowledge, thankfully, that Oliver has missed him, “very much,” as he says. Elio is desperate to recapture the intimacy they shared only months before. “Elio, Elio, Elio,” he repeats on the phone, enticing Oliver to reply with his own name. “Oliver” he moans in return. “I remember everything.” This momentarily soothes Elio. But is remembering enough?

[clickToTweet tweet=”‘The extended close-up that concludes CALL ME BY YOUR NAME is like a video I have played on repeat ever since I first saw it.'” quote=”‘The extended close-up that concludes CALL ME BY YOUR NAME is like a video I have played on repeat ever since I first saw it.'”]

In André Aciman’s novel, Elio thinks back to the birth of his desire for Oliver and wonders, can memories bring back summer in a snowstorm? In Luca Guadagnino’s film, when Elio looks into the camera — effectively looking directly at us — he seems to be posing a similar question. Will his memories of his past with Oliver be enough to make that time real again? Can they keep him warm? Elio’s only looking back a matter of months, but now it’s December; it’s snowing and his hold on the Oliver of last summer is slipping.

Timothée Chalamet pulls together everything he has shown us in the two hours prior in this silent, mostly still exposition of the totality of love’s loss. He doesn’t need to say a word. In his face, we see that Elio understands that the space between he and Oliver is increasing. And this knowledge feels like a death for him. Elio has found a home in Oliver, as Aciman writes, a “secret conduit to myself.” Being without him, being unable to touch him, or to be close to Oliver’s body, is akin to exile — a dislocation for Elio from his own body and his idea of himself.

[clickToTweet tweet=”‘I have touched you for the last time. Is it a video?’ Sufjan Stevens sings as Elio grieves, cries, becomes angry, momentarily brightens, and then breaks down again.” quote=”‘I have touched you for the last time. Is it a video?’ Sufjan Stevens sings as Elio grieves, cries, becomes angry, momentarily brightens, and then breaks down again.”]

“I have touched you for the last time. Is it a video?” Sufjan Stevens sings as Elio grieves, cries, becomes angry, momentarily brightens, and then breaks down again. When his mother calls him for Hanukkah dinner, Elio glances at the camera and then looks away, as the screen goes black. There is ambiguity in this gesture. I’ve replayed this moment over and over, and its meaning keeps changing. At first, I felt certain that Elio would be okay. Life will go on. He will have other lovers. He will certainly be loved. I still think this. But I also think something has broken that can’t be fixed. Loving Oliver has changed Elio for better and worse. Now I wonder: will he be haunted by its loss and his grief for the rest of his life? It has made and unmade him — it will continue to do so every time he replays scenes from the past in his mind. Love that earth-shattering usually does. – Joanna Di Mattia

Read part 1 of our Call Me by Your Name scene analyses here >>