Warning. This review contains spoilers. 

It is one of those stories – it blows your mind. You watch and rewatch it trying to grasp that fleeting feeling that they managed to express so well through casting (Armie Hammer’s later controversy aside), directing/ editing, soundtrack and beautiful scenery. Sufjan’s softly voiced ballad is cast over the intense love story unfolding in front of us. Mystery of love indeed. 

First touch during the voleyball game. Oliver’s Converses on the dancefloor. Elio with Oliver’s trunks on his head. The carefully coded confession. The kiss. The nosebleed. The handshake. The note. The feet. The peach scene. Then train. There is always a train. As the certain symbol of the end, it whisks away our lovers, to never return. And so Oliver is gone, Elio is sobbing in the phone booth and I sob with him, and then the finale flatlines me, leaving me drowning in my sorrow while keeping Kleenex in business. 

C’est la vie. All good comes to an end. Nothing gold can stay (Robert Frost). Love = loss. The credits roll and I already miss the Italian summer (in Crema, I have to visit!) with its joie vivre and colours and hot intensity (and peaches). I miss these two and what they had and I miss, I miss the feeling that this film gives you. It captures, encapsulates love, then pushes it into your veins – I feel 20 again, nothing is impossible and I feel exactly like Sufjan sings. It’s as if someone made a story of that summer of love I once had, for real? in my fantasies? Elio!! Oliver!! Call me by your name.

PS: I am aware that young folks cancelled this film and Luca Guadagnino because they see age difference between Elio (17) and Oliver (24) as problematic and intentional on the side of the author, making this story a gay equivalent of “Lolita.” I did not realise it at the time of writing this blog post but I must say I still love the story. However, this realisation and Armie Hammer’s controversy soured the future rewatches for me, not to mention put a nail in the coffin of a previously rumoured sequel. And I agree, if Elio was my 17-year old son, being seduced by a 24-year old in this day and age, I’d likely have a problem with it.