Timothée Chalamet did not go through the five stages of grief in under 4 minutes as Elio in Call Me by Your Name to not win a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture (Drama)
Timothée Chalamet did not go through the five stages of grief in under 4 minutes as Elio in Call Me by Your Name to not win a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture (Drama)
I finished Call Me By Your Name last night. I don’t know where to begin. This book fucked me up on every conceivable level. The plot is elegant and tightly constructed with no scene wasted; characters are richly drawn and the voice agonizingly true; stylistically, it’s breathtaking. I had to put it down at one point because the prose LITERALLY TOOK MY BREATH AWAY. I didn’t just read this book, I lived inside it, experiencing all of Elio’s feelings: his desire, his anxiety, his shame, his sorrow.
I read the book in two sittings, both times stopping when the title was invoked: “call me by your name”. The first time this line appears, it’s like a drug. I felt elated after reading that scene and went to bed at 4am with heart palpitations. (Yes, this book almost fucking killed me). When these words are echoed at the very end of the novel, it’s with profound melancholy and I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. No, I’m not being dramatic. I was in physical and emotional distress.
*spoilers*
I wonder if this novel is so affecting, not because Elio and Oliver didn’t stay together but because we know that if they did, their relationship wouldn’t have held the same meaning for them–that meaning is shaped by loss. The greater the loss, the greater the meaning. Another thing that struck me was Elio’s father’s take on the relationship. He recognized how rare and precious their bond was, even if it was just for a few fleeting summer weeks. (Oh God I’m crying again). Elio and Oliver really truly understood each other, inhabited each other, became each other, and I don’t think I appreciated just how rare that is until Aciman brought it to life on the page. And that is, I think, ultimately the saddest part of the book–that we’re lucky to experience a connection like this once in our lives, that most people don’t experience it at all.
“[I stopped for a second.] If you remember everything, I wanted to say, and if you are really like me, then before you leave tomorrow, or when you’re just ready to shut the door of the taxi and have already said goodbye to everyone else and there’s not a thing left to say in this life, then, just this once, turn to me, even in jest, or as an afterthought, which would have meant everything to me when we were together, and, as you did back then, look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name.”
— André Aciman, from Call Me by Your Name (thanks, eightbullets)
Actor Armie Hammer poses for a portrait to promote the film, “Call Me By Your Name”, at the Music Lodge during the Sundance Film Festival on Monday, Jan. 23, 2017, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP).
“Do I like you?” I wanted to sound incredulous, as though to question how could he ever have doubted such a thing. But then I thought better of it and was on the point of softening the tone of my answer with a meaningfully evasive ‘perhaps’ that was supposed to mean ‘absolutely’, when I let my tongue loose: “Do I like you? I worship you.”
“Fear not. It will come. At least I hope it does. And when you least expect it. Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot. Just remember: I am here. Right now you may not want to feel anything. Perhaps you never wished to feel anything. And perhaps it’s not with me that you’ll want to speak about these things. But feel something you did.”
