Call Me by Your Name
君の名前で僕を呼んで
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
One 1983 Italian summer, a peach, and a father's speech; the age gap between Elio, seventeen, and Oliver, twenty-four, drew criticism on release.
In the summer of 1983, seventeen-year-old Elio Perlman is at his family's house in the countryside of northern Italy, reading, playing the piano and spending time with his friends Chiara and Marzia. His father, a professor of archaeology, has invited Oliver, a 24-year-old American graduate student, to stay for the summer and help with his work. Elio at first thinks they have nothing in common: Oliver seems confident and carefree. Then Elio finds himself jealous when Oliver kisses Chiara.
The two spend more and more time together, on long walks into town and on an archaeological trip with Elio's father. Elio confesses his feelings; Oliver says they cannot talk about such things. They kiss, Oliver holds back, and for days they barely speak. Elio begins a romance with Marzia. Then he leaves Oliver a note, Oliver writes back asking him to meet at midnight, and they become lovers: a man of twenty-four and a seventeen-year-old, which the film tells as first love. "Call me by your name," Oliver says, "and I'll call you by mine." Absorbed in Oliver, Elio ignores Marzia for days and hurts her.
As Oliver's stay draws to an end, Elio's parents, who seem to understand what has happened, suggest the two spend a few days in Bergamo before he flies home. After Oliver's train leaves, Elio phones his mother to come and take him home. Marzia tells him she wants to stay friends. His father tells him that what he and Oliver had was rare, that he himself never had it, and urges him to keep his heart open rather than close himself off.
In winter, at Hanukkah, Oliver telephones: he is engaged to a woman he has been seeing on and off for years. On the line they call each other by the names they once exchanged, and Oliver says he remembers everything. Elio sits in front of the fire and weeps, while behind him the household prepares dinner.
Starring
Timothée Chalametas Elio Perlman
A bookish, musical seventeen-year-old spending the summer at his family's house in northern Italy, who falls in love for the first time.
Elio Perlman’s story
At first Elio finds Oliver, the American his father has invited for the summer, too sure of himself. Then he is jealous when Oliver kisses Chiara, and draws closer to him on walks into town and a trip with his father. He confesses his feelings; Oliver holds back, and for days they barely speak, while Elio begins a romance with Marzia. Then he leaves Oliver a note, and they become lovers. Absorbed in Oliver, he ignores Marzia and hurts her. After three days in Bergamo he watches Oliver's train leave and phones his mother to take him home. His father tells him that what he had was rare and that he must not close his heart. At Hanukkah Oliver calls to say he is engaged, and Elio weeps by the fire.
Armie Hammeras Oliver
A confident 24-year-old American graduate student who spends the summer with the family as the professor's assistant.
Oliver’s story
Oliver arrives confident and carefree, and kisses Chiara. When the professor's seventeen-year-old son, Elio, tells him how he feels, Oliver says they cannot talk about such things, and after a first kiss he holds back for days. Then he answers Elio's note, asking him to meet at midnight, and they become lovers: a man of twenty-four and a seventeen-year-old, which the film tells as first love. 'Call me by your name,' he says, 'and I'll call you by mine.' Elio's parents send them to Bergamo for three days before he flies home. At Hanukkah he calls to say he is engaged to a woman he has seen on and off for years; on the line he and Elio call each other by the names they exchanged, and he says he remembers everything.
Michael Stuhlbargas Mr Perlman
Elio's father, a professor of archaeology, who sees more than he says and gives his son a rare kind of understanding.
Amira Casaras Annella Perlman
Elio's mother, who quietly understands her son and comes to fetch him when Oliver has gone.
Esther Garrelas Marzia
A friend of Elio's from the town who begins a romance with him and is hurt when he drops her.
Why it matters
Call Me by Your Name is a first-love story that refuses to make desire a tragedy: no villain, no punishment, only a summer and its end, and a father who tells his son not to close himself off against the pain. Luca Guadagnino described it not as a "gay" film but as one about the newness of desire, and it won James Ivory the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. It was also criticised, especially in the United States, for showing a sexual relationship between a seventeen-year-old and a 24-year-old; Karamo Brown said it glorified sexual assault, while The Advocate pointed to similar or greater age gaps in heterosexual classics such as Gone with the Wind. In 2021, allegations against Armie Hammer, which he denied, put a planned sequel in doubt. Those arguments sit beside the film's central question: what a first love teaches, and what it costs to feel it fully.