Waste of time

Just perfect...

Boring

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

The film is set in Northern Italy in 1983 before the AIDS crisis. The film is about a teenager named Elio Perlman who comes of age one summer. Oliver is his father's research assistant sent for a summer internship. Their romance slowly begins and unfolds during the film. Elio's parents must be the most enlightened parents ever. They even hint that they know about their son's sexuality before he tells them. They even send him and Oliver on a road trip together towards the end of the film. The romance is believable. The actors do their best to convey their attraction although somewhat discrete in Italy. Elio lives with his parents at a villa in Northern Italy year round. The summer flies by though as does the film. The film does have an abrupt ending about Oliver and Elio's relationship.

This movie really disappointed. Both protagonists are either bad actors or totally uncomfortable in their roles. They both come across as creepy and crazy. Most of the dialogues in the movie don't make any sense. Especially throughout the first 75% of the movie, there is just one weird unintelligible dialogue after another. Nothing hits the spot. I bet many people appreciate this movie for the fine Italian scenery, but that it really the only good thing about this movie, and I can go to Italy for that.The storyline itself also doesn't make any sense. The movie seems a loose collection of scenes, and perhaps if you've read the book it all makes more sense, but without reading the book, it's quite hard to understand what the hell kind of random thing is going on now.The worst thing is the end where the father appears to say that he is also a closeted gay guy. I mean... he's having a conversation with his gay son about his first love, and there he goes and he reveals he's been gay all along as well? His son is crying and he just goes and says like "I know what you're going through, I'm married to your mother and all, but I'm also gay! Surprise!" Well hello. Just absolutely ridiculous this movie. I appreciated it more for its ridiculousness than for anything els.

The setting: the italian countryside the characters: ridiculously enthusiastic professors, grad students, and a talented, bold adolescent who transcribes schoenberg and reads voraciously (+ various caricatures of italians) the dialogue: quotes from seventeenth century french drama, analysis of heraclitus and hegel, which fall entirely too short to add anything, but are thrown there to display how smart these people are how much more pretentious and grotesquely bourgeois can you get? to make things worst, the guy who is supposed to be the exotic american everyone falls for has the charisma of a paper bag, and is a terrible actor the actor who plays the teenage character is the anchor, but the ship is too heavy for him alone to save it

Armie Hammer found himself grossly miscast as the diffident hunk and it doesn't work for me. There's less than zero chemistry between Oliver and Elio, despite a valiant (and Academy Award nominated) acting performance by Timothee Chalamet. The entire affair reeks of forced airs in a way never required in a Merchant/Ivory concoction. When Elio gets his explicitly telegraphed call at the end, it's a 100% groaner. Well, duh. But at least Timothee gets his Oscar try at the picture's end and I can't fault his acting...but Armie Hammer is out of his element...he can't convince me he has a gay bone in his body nor has he convinced me he has any feelings for Elio, sexual or emotional. It's an intellectual effort in non-onanistic pleasures. It's impossible for me to imagine Oliver wanting to do anything in that way with Elio given Armie's performance.