When someone opens up and really wants to share themselves with you, it can go fast and deep and become something you never might have expected. In fact, it can be uncommonly lovely and delicate.
(And no, I'm not just talking about the handjob. Perverts.)
"I should have cried too much sometimes I feel like I'm just gonna turn into drops."
Do you remember the moment you discovered you were a sexual creature? You think of others as more than just handsome or beautiful. You actually want to do things to them. You start to wonder creatively what those things could be.
Luca Guadagnino's "Call Me By Your Name," reaches back to that moment when one's sexuality first rears its head.
Every summer, the Perlman family hosts a guest for the summer. The patriarch, Mr. Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg), is a professor and it's an opportunity for a kind of mentorship. This summer, that guest is Oliver (Armie Hammer), a twenty-four-year-old student of Mr. Perlman.
At first, Elio (Timothee Chalamet), the Perlmans' seventeen-year-old son, doesn't like Oliver at all. In fact, Oliver is kind of a dick. He's arrogant and dismissive. He refuses any overtures of friendship, but he himself demands constant companionship. He expects others to drop everything to accommodate him. So yeah, Oliver is not just kind of a dick. He's a straight-up bastard.
Elio has to spend almost all of his time entertaining Oliver. He has to go on errands with him. Whenever it suits Oliver, he insists Elio must accompany him all of the time as he goes bike riding or swimming, etc.
Slowly, Elio's feelings turn from annoyance to attraction. Like a little man-crush, and the romance builds from there.
At the same time, Elio is curious about sex in general. He hasn't found his identification yet, so while he's falling for Oliver, his romance with girlfriend Marzia (Esther Garrel) is progressing, getting more serious and more sexual.
But as his attraction to Olivier turns into infatuation, he has to make some kind of choice. To be fair, Marzia deserves that much. She needs to know where her relationship with Elio is going.
The bulk of the film concentrates on the evolving romance between Oliver and Elio. Now, the time he spends with Oliver, running errands, bike riding, swimming etc. have gone from tedious to treasured.
The way the story plays out with this small intimate group of characters, against the backdrop of northern Italy in the summer makes me think of Bernardo Bertolucci's "Stealing Beauty." Just as in "Stealing Beauty," the characters adore each other and that endears them to us. Plus, the love scenes between Oliver and Elio are soft and intimate.
One thing I have learned from art-house, gay-centered films is that all of the love scenes starts with play fighting. I don't believe that's the way it is in life, but I don't think I've ever seen a gay love sequence without that wrestling kind of foreplay.
The tenderness and subtly which with Guadagnino unfolds this romance is beautiful. If you like love stories at all, you'll enjoy "Call Me By Your Name."
As young adults or teenagers, when we encounter our first loves, it changes every part of us irrevocably. In some of us, the changes are subtle. In others, however, the transformation slaps us in the face and recreates us into something we never would have believed.
The girls Joachim Trier presents us with in "Thelma" are quiet to start with, particularly Thelma (Eili Harboe). She's a young college student, starting life out on her own. Sort of. She's still tied to her religious yet demoralizing parents.
Thelma's father (Henrik Rafaelsen) is a grand manipulator. Whenever he tries to teach her a moral lesson, it always ends the same: Thelma lowers her head and starts to weep. These speeches spring up randomly in most of their conversations and they devastate Thelma.
Her mother (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) is a quiet, passive-aggressive woman who doesn't talk very much, but is clearly softly bullying the girl.
Thelma plows through, studying and going to classes. She hasn't really made any friends yet. A girl, Anja (Kaya Wilkins) sits with her one day while she's studying.
Thelma's attraction to this girl kicks in right away. She falls to the floor having a non-epileptic seizure. She has no history of epilepticy or seizures of any kind. The doctors run tests, but don't find anything, so clearly, something else triggered the seizure. Like seeing her first love for the very first time. Put that together with Thelma realizing in a second that she likes girls it's no wonder why she reacted so strongly.
Thelma and Anja start to get closer as Thelma's desire for Anja rises. At the same time, Thelma's religious upbringing harmfully holds her back. At night, she kneels with her head against the wall and pleads with God to take away these sinful thoughts and urges. When her father finds about her sexual identity, he forces her to kneel with her head against the wall, pleading with God to remove these new, deviant desires. Thelma is profoundly lost.
The bulk of the film is about Thelma's choice. Does she bend to the so-called morality of her upbringing? Or is she going to hunt down the girl she loves dearly so they call start their relationship?
They clearly have a pure love between them. The passion that grows between them reminded me of Abdellatif Kechiche's deeply emotional "Blue is the Warmest Color."
Therein lies the trauma millions of young gay men and women experience. They can't let themselves love because something in their heads insists that who they are is wrong. So much unhappiness comes from love deprivation. Above everything in this world, love is what we need the most. And everyone deserves to have it.
"Thelma" looks at this problem without condemnation, for neither Thelma or her parents. Trier doesn't condescend to mocking her upbringing, her beliefs or her family, even when they're at their worst. That kind of kindness he shows to all of his characters carries this film and raises it up among others that explore this theme.
So yes, you should seek out "Thelma." Not just if you're a sucker for romance but if you love film or storytelling. This film is far too thoughtful to peg it into a genre.
Let me say it as strongly as possible. "Thelma" is one of the great films of 2017.
Do you remember the moment you discovered you were a sexual creature? You think of others as more than just handsome or beautiful. You actually want to do things to them. You start to wonder creatively what those things could be.
Elio has to spend almost all of his time entertaining Oliver. He has to go on errands with him. Whenever it suits Oliver, he insists Elio must accompany him all of the time as he goes bike riding or swimming, etc.
At the same time, Elio is curious about sex in general. He hasn't found his identification yet, so while he's falling for Oliver, his romance with girlfriend Marzia (Esther Garrel) is progressing, getting more serious and more sexual.
The way the story plays out with this small intimate group of characters, against the backdrop of northern Italy in the summer makes me think of Bernardo Bertolucci's "Stealing Beauty." Just as in "Stealing Beauty," the characters adore each other and that endears them to us. Plus, the love scenes between Oliver and Elio are soft and intimate.
As young adults or teenagers, when we encounter our first loves, it changes every part of us irrevocably. In some of us, the changes are subtle. In others, however, the transformation slaps us in the face and recreates us into something we never would have believed.
Her mother (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) is a quiet, passive-aggressive woman who doesn't talk very much, but is clearly softly bullying the girl.
Thelma and Anja start to get closer as Thelma's desire for Anja rises. At the same time, Thelma's religious upbringing harmfully holds her back. At night, she kneels with her head against the wall and pleads with God to take away these sinful thoughts and urges. When her father finds about her sexual identity, he forces her to kneel with her head against the wall, pleading with God to remove these new, deviant desires. Thelma is profoundly lost.
The bulk of the film is about Thelma's choice. Does she bend to the so-called morality of her upbringing? Or is she going to hunt down the girl she loves dearly so they call start their relationship?
Therein lies the trauma millions of young gay men and women experience. They can't let themselves love because something in their heads insists that who they are is wrong. So much unhappiness comes from love deprivation. Above everything in this world, love is what we need the most. And everyone deserves to have it.
So yes, you should seek out "Thelma." Not just if you're a sucker for romance but if you love film or storytelling. This film is far too thoughtful to peg it into a genre.