Oscar nominee and Twitter boyfriend Timothée Chalamet celebrates his 25th birthday today. With a film career that spans less than a decade, Chalamet already made a huge cultural mark by becoming the youngest Best Actor nominee since 1939 for his work in 2017’s Call Me by Your Name. Adapted from the novel by André Aciman, the film tells the story of the romance between Elio (Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer) in the summer of 1983 in northern Italy. While Chalamet has continued to do interesting work, he has yet to match the widespread critical acclaim that he earned for this performance.
It is then just apt for me to celebrate his birthday by recounting the very precious moment of being introduced to him by watching Call Me by Your Name for the first time and its profound impact on me. This is going to be some candid storytelling so fasten your seatbelts...
When I first saw the trailer back in mid-2017, Call Me by Your Name immediately became my top priority must-see. However, I just watched it that one time; I wanted to go into the film as blindly as I could. (I had just graduated from film school and my friends there were all buzzing about the film. Some of them even picked up the novel.)
We usually get theatrical releases quite late in the Philippines, especially if the film hopes to be an Oscar contender. I was already preparing to wait until February 2018 if it even got a release here. That’s one of the reasons why I was rooting for the film to get a Best Picture nomination even before seeing it. I would have seen it in any form (you know what I mean) but I wanted the big screen experience.
Luckily, a local film festival had Call Me by Your Name as one of its foreign releases on the sidebar. I immediately contacted a friend who was also hoping to see it. I was working at an office at the time so I asked her to buy the tickets for us at the mall in the morning. Unfortunately, she didn’t get them. The lines were already long when she arrived at ten in the morning. I guess we underestimated how big the gay population is in Manila.
Even when the festival added a screening, it sold out quickly. I knew I would probably have to wait until the next year as the film had soon snagged a January 31st, 2018 release date in the Philippines. But with December came awards season and as the critics awards started to unfold, I got impatient. I had to resist the temptation to see the film in other ways knowing it wouldn't be the best experience.
While I was waiting, I was getting excited in my personal life because my longtime crush at the time had agreed to go out with me for the first time. However, it was a "friend" date; any potential for a romantic spark was gone months before. I was both hopeful and hopeless at the same time. I was also recently unemployed so nothing was happening to distract me; I was all about the love. This point is important to mention while retelling these events; I was lovesick at the exact time I waited impatiently for the release.
And then, a surprise. On January 21st, I found out that ahead of the theatrical run on the 31st, Call Me by Your Name was going to have a sneak peek showing on both the 22nd and 23rd! I did not know that we had such things here in the Phillipines and I'd been so focused on the 31st. I immediately messaged my crush if he would want to watch the film with me. But I decided: whether he comes or not, I will watch the film.
The following day, my crush did not reply, but whatever.
Call Me by Your Name was not screening outside of Metro Manila and I live in the province so I had to travel for three hours to watch the film in the cinema with the best projection that I knew of. Given the amount of travel, I decided I'd watch three films that day: The Greatest Showman, Call Me by Your Name, and All the Money in the World. I was already listening to Sufjan Steven's songs, but I had no context at all for them.
I was late by thirty seconds to the first film of the day The Greatest Showman; they were already showing the production company logo and the foot-stomping opening song was \playing. I thought the film was good but incredibly lightweight. Great songs, but that’s it. There was a two-hour break between the end and my screening of Call Me by Your Name. I cannot remember what I did, but I probably just walked around the mall. Or stayed inside the public restroom stall to write in my small notebook about random Oscar stuff to kill time.
AND SUDDENLY, 6:55 PM CAME.
I picked the centermost seat in the cinema (as I always do). I tried my best to throw any Oscar talk far from my mind and just see it as a film. All of a sudden, Call Me by Your Name began unfolding right in front of my eyes. I had waited for so many months and it was worth it. It was and remains a glorious film that exudes so much beauty in every frame. It was cold in the cinema but I was feeling really warm, as if the sun-kissed skin of the actors radiated the same amount of heat for me. And with the film’s deliberate pacing, I was forced to stick with the actors and experience each and every moment with them. The movie exudes such relaxed sensuality, and it was truly a visceral experience unlike anything I had had at the cinema before.
And then, there was Timothée’s Elio: this lanky teenager who finds the arrival of Oliver, a stranger, into their home a curiosity. For the next two hours, nothing big happens except that we witness the slow blossoming of the romance between Elio and Oliver with the most beautiful of details.
Timothée is our anchor; the film lives or dies with him. What he captures in his performance as Elio is astonishing: the initial resistance, the petty annoyance, the suppressed euphoria, , the restless infatuation, the confounding guessing game, and all those nuances of the emotional journey before a romance blossoms.
It always makes me feel emotionally fragile when I see an actor open themselves up fully and let the character’s vulnerabilities be so accessible to us. Timothée was putting himself out there on the unpredictable roller-coaster of romance and lust. What Elio was going through was exactly what was resonating for me at that point in my life. I thought about the beauty of love and how it just creeps up on you until it is too late and you're already caught with the passion that's reverberating from your soul. It is both confusing and consuming, troubling and calming, lustful and melancholic. That wallop of emotions was all in Timothée’s vivid interpretation of Elio and the director Luca Guadagnino beautifully assured that he captured just that.
But the film understands that the aforementioned beauty of love isn’t just about being together. Every beautiful summer has to end. So does every summer romance. As Oliver’s time with Elio drew to an end, I felt the fear of losing someone you just discovered you needed. The temporal element of their relationship has been suspended because time just flies despite the boredom one might feel in the moment. So once they, especially Elio, are confronted with the brutal reminder that things have to end, there is an open wound that he struggles to hide. Oliver just opens something in Elio and... leaves. Oliver has a life to go back to, but Elio is merely returning to the place where their love grew. Elio’s room, Oliver’s clothes, the empty hallways of the house, the books on the shelves - all are now reminders of the romance.
With Elio feeling lost, so was I. Then came Michael Stuhlbarg as Elio’s father, giving a speech I wish I had heard when I was a teenager. Elio’s reflex after feeling so much pain is to pull back and kill the emotions that he is having. It's a completely normal human reaction, a way to get through the pain. You numb yourself to the existence of the emotions. Elio’s father disagrees and warns him away from that path. In an extended pep talk, his father tells him to cherish his feelings. The same thing that Elio is trying to kill inside of him is the the thing that gives beauty in life. With joy comes pain. Yin and yang, they are inseparable. To say that this scene just gave me all the emotions is an understatement.
In that same moment, I was confronted by the fact that my own personal love might never be reciprocated, but that it is one of the things that makes life beautiful. Love is not just something to experience with someone. You already cherish it even before it bursts from you soul and you reach for it when you can't hold on to it. It is okay to feel pain in love and in life. That's the beauty.
When I reached the final scene of the film - Elio staring at the fireplace after hearing that Oliver is already getting married - I couldn't cry. But Elio confronts the moment head on. He might be doing it by himself, but he is no longer afraid to face it. In a single uninterrupted take, Elio looks at the fire as a reminder of the passionate romance that was ultimately set to end. It ended during the summer of 1983 and it has ended again with this news. Elio has now learned his lesson and he is experiencing both the pain and joy of the love that he and Oliver had. This is no longer the Elio that we saw at the beginning of the film. He has truly come of age.
I remember prematurely feeling “I’m no longer afraid of pain” or some random bullsh*t as I left the film. I was not able to process the emotions because I had to run to the next theater to watch All the Money in the World. That was fine. I did not know what to feel just yet. Three vastly different films and quick commutes between them were not the best situation in which to meditate on the feelings. But at midnight it was now time to take the three-hour bus ride home.
Then I made what my biggest mistake of that day: as I was looking out the bus window and I decided to play Sufjan Stevens’s “Visions of Gideon”, the song that was playing when Elio was crying in front of the fireplace. I was in ruins, tears running down my face. I was just devastated. The feeling persisted for days; I was not able to watch any films or even listen to any songs. I was just mostly in my bedroom, quietly reeling from the experience of watching the film.
Two days later and I’m still thinking about these things: “Elio’s last shot, Oliver’s voice, the father’s monologue, the Sufjan Steven songs, the warm cinematography, the naked bodies”.
And yes, that was directly pulled from my journal dated Jan. 24, two days after I watched it.
Call Me by Your Name did get the Oscar nominations that it needed, but it deserved much more. I did know at the time that it was not a surefire contender. I was just relieved that it was recognized. But more than that, I saw the film as a film, and not just as an awards contender to get behind to. I treasure it deeply. And inasmuch as it was Luca Guadagnino’s masterful vision that ultimately shaped the film the way that it is, the film also owes so much to Timothée’s soulful interpretation of Elio. And I owe him, too.
This was the performance that I needed to see at that exact point in my life. It made me hate my lovesick self less. To this day, Timothée's performance still has an incredible impact on me. It's made me less fearful of meeting new people, falling in love, feeling the pain and facing my fears. That sounds cheesy as heck (I know), but it's true. I know Timothée is bound to do great things in his still young career, but he will always be Elio to me.
I'll wrap up by citing what I wrote in my Jan. 22, 2018 entry:
It feels so sensual, tangible, erotic, organic, and real. Heck, I felt every moment of it. And I feel attacked by this film. Every nuance adds up.
The joy of falling in love. The uncertainty of feeling attraction slowly creeping within. The childish jealousy. The immature provocation. The teenage impulse. The eagerness. The inescapability of letting go a short-lived friendship. The slow destruction of the what-ifs into the what-coulda-beens.
I am in love with every inch and every minute of this film. I feel lost and found while watching this film. I want to cry with Elio, laugh with Oliver, talk to Mr. Perlman, and make love with Elio and Oliver.
My senses feel awakened. I became more conscious of my emotions. It connected with me so deeply. The ending left me cornered, attacked, and then injured. I will treasure the experience of watching this film forever. Perfect, perfect, perfect. I’m writing this whole entry to “Visions of Gideon”. Probably a bad idea, but whatever.
With that, I say my deepest thanks to Timothée Chalamet for the gift of Elio. Happy 25th birthday, Timmy!
Do you remember the first time you saw Call Me by Your Name?