Author's judgement: 
It is legitimate to assume that when the news of the nominated for 4 Academy Awards for Call me with your name there were not a few who wondered “but who is Luca Guadagnino?”. The writer is among them and it is difficult to admit surprise. His previous works have had as much success in the United States as they have had little success in our home. Thus it is not easy to have to consider that Italian cinema, often mistreated, may be able to make leaps of such a stature.
It is not easy to admit that it is certainly an Italian director, but what the film of Italianness - especially for the subject and for the topics covered - shows very little and only a certain type. Finally, it is not easy to admit that an Italian film can represent its great acting school only through American actors. In short, we must admit that it is a film that is as beautiful and astonishing as it is, at the same time, complex and disorienting.
The plot is simple: we find ourselves in the province of Bergamo in the summer of 83, in a villa with rich and cultured owners, a family of "secluded" Jews where every year a foreign student is hosted for a sort of internship with the professor , owner of the house and father of the young protagonist. The two characters are Oliver (Armie Hammer) and Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and the story revolves around their story first of friendship and then of true love. Elio, in particular, is the pivot of the story and it is through his reflections, his anxieties, his fragility that the whole narrative scaffolding is reflected and supported.
Great acting test, as rarely happens to see, of all the characters, some only outlined and others thicker and deeper (not to forget the father's monologue at the end of the film). It is easy to understand why the Anglo-Saxon acting school often appears to be of greater stature than the Italian one. Luca Guadagnino comes from a great education, it is clear that he has absorbed the best of Italian cinema, from Bertolucci to Visconti, and proposes a style that has made our school famous in the world.
There are suggestions and references from various sources, from The Garden of the Finzi Contini by Vittorio De Sica from 1970 (curiously, the theme of the garden returns as a narrative place and with this film De Sica won the Oscar) Morte a Venezia by Luchino Visconti from 1971. Cultured and refined quotes from different worlds, from ancient Greek literature to modern American writers.
The photography is as simple as it is effective (the film is shot in 35 mm, and the difference compared to digital shooting can be seen: the chromatic rendering is ever closer to the receptive capabilities of the human eye). Some sequences deserve to be "sparkled" although they are impeccable in the framing, in the light, in the depths. The soundtrack, by Sufjan Stevens, perfectly accompanies the story and enriches the pleasure of viewing.
The film is Italian opera, shot in Italy and placed in a historical moment of our country, the 80s, full of tensions and difficulties. However, we feel that the gaze of whoever proposed the screenplay (the work is based on a novel by the American Andrè Aciman) and of whoever collaborated on it with a strong contribution (James Ivory, author of A Room with a View, The Remains of the Day ) is all aimed at an audience perhaps different from ours.
The portrait of our country seems to be the one that is so popular and sells well abroad and, in the USA in particular: culture, sensuality and sensitivity, music and good food, all in a pleasant environment, immersed in unspoiled nature. In this key we perceive a small limitation of this film precisely in the search for sophistication and aestheticism in some passages that are perhaps too marked. It depends on the points of view because this same limit could be its advantage, such as to deserve and justify the nomination for the four Oscars.
On the evening of March 4, together with the election results, we will be able to find out how it ended. The battle will be tough, Luca Guadagnino's competitors are strong and fierce, backed by mega-productions rich in budgets and protagonists, while our Italian director has only great quality. It is to be hoped that it will be sufficient.
