A Love That Lingers in the Air: Revisiting Call Me by Your Name
Some films do not just tell a story but instead capture a feeling, a place, a time that exists somewhere between memory and dream. To me, Call Me by Your Name is one of those films, an experience more than a narrative, a meditation more than a story. Watching it feels like slipping into a sun-drenched afternoon, where time is slow, the air is thick with the scent of peaches, and love unfurls gently like a lazy river winding its way through the Italian countryside.
The film, directed with exquisite tenderness by Luca Guadagnino, is not in a hurry. It breathes. It listens. It watches. The cinematography by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom captures light with an almost painterly quality, bathing everything in warm, golden hues that feel like an eternal summer. The quietness of the set, the careful use of natural sound—the rustling of leaves, the crunch of a bicycle on gravel, the distant laughter of a family at dinner, and the cicadas humming in the heat, create an intimacy so immersive that we don’t just watch Elio and Oliver fall in love, we feel it.
There is no obvious antagonist, no grand external conflict. The greatest tension in Call Me by Your Name is not between the characters but within them, the quiet ache of longing, the tentative steps toward something beautiful and terrifying all at once. This is a world without cruelty, without villains. It is a place where love is allowed to bloom without resistance, where a father speaks words of kindness and understanding rather than condemnation, and where heartbreak is met not with destruction but with reflection. It is, in many ways, a utopia -- not in the sense that it is perfect, but in the way that it holds space for love in its purest, most fragile form.
Timothée Chalamet delivers a performance that feels so unguarded, so honest, that it is as though we are watching a heartbeat in real-time. His Elio is raw and intellectual, self-assured yet impossibly vulnerable. Armie Hammer’s Oliver, in contrast, is golden and enigmatic, carrying the kind of effortless confidence that only makes his moments of hesitation all the more devastating. Their chemistry is electric but also tender; it simmers beneath the surface, in glances and gestures, in the space between words.
And then there is the silence. The spaces between dialogue, the room tone that lingers after a moment of connection—Guadagnino understands that love is not just in what is said but in what is left unsaid, in what is felt in the pauses, in the weight of a glance, in the way a hand hovers before it dares touch.
Call Me by Your Name is not just a love story; it's a memory preserved in amber, a summer that never quite ends, a song played softly in the background of one’s life long after it has faded. It's the ache of first love, the bittersweet beauty of something fleeting, the quiet devastation of knowing that some things, no matter how perfect—are not meant to last. And yet, even in that impermanence, it lingers. It remains. Like the echoes of laughter on a warm evening, like the last notes of a song before silence takes over. Like the rustling of trees long after the lovers have gone.
~ E. V. Carlson
Video credit: Editsect on YT
