Article | February 1st, 2025
Call Me by Your Name: A Queer Classic Which Still Resounds
By Nicholas O'Connor
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PHOTO: SS CMBYN
Few queer films have so completely marked viewers as Call Me by Your Name. From Luca Guadagnino, based on the novel by André Aciman, this 2017 film tells of one summer when Elio Perlman falls in love with Oliver in 1980s Italy, complete with all of the intensity, longing, and heartbreak accompanying a first love. Call Me by Your Name was years in coming, yet remains to this very date an exemplar in queer cinema for reasons other than its storytelling and emotional capture.
The Beauty of First Love and Queer Desire
At its core, Call Me by Your Name is a coming-of-age about self-discovery through love. The relationship between Elio and Oliver is full of these small, charged moments: stolen glances, lingering touches, unspoken words that culminate into something undeniable. While most queer films rely on trauma, Call Me by Your Name lets the beauty of queer desire be free in sun-soaked landscapes and poetic conversations.
Elio's is particularly a journey of self-discovery: the shy and unsure boy slowly builds confidence in his desires through this deepening relationship with Oliver. The film does not hasten his realization but lingers in silences and hesitations to render his transformation even more real.
PHOTO: SS CMBYN
The Emotional Weight of the Ending
While queer love is celebrated in this film, heartbreak is not avoided either. Oliver's departure leaves Elio devastated, and the final shot-Elio staring into the fireplace as tears stream down his face-is one of the most gut-wrenching moments in modern queer cinema. There's no dramatic outburst, no forced closure-just raw emotion. It's a scene that resonates deeply with many queer viewers, capturing the pain of a love that, while real, was never meant to last.
PHOTO: SS CMBYN
A Film That Transcends Time
Even as Call Me by Your Name is firmly planted in the 1980s, the depth of its love, self-discovery, and longing are eternal. The movie has been a cultural marker for queerness: audiences have debated everything, from how Elio's father-Michael Stuhlbarg-performs his now-iconic speech about love and loss to what the peach scene means, and what Mystery of Love by Sufjan Stevens is trying to tell one.
Within an atmosphere where too many queer love stories have disappeared into obscurity, Call Me by Your Name rises as some sort of stubborn testament that, yes, our love is valid and should have been told-along with above all, experienced.
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