The Shadow Over <i>Call Me by Your Name</i>
The masterful shot that closes Call Me by Your Name asks the viewer to do the same thing the character on screen is doing: think. Over seven minutes, Elio Perlman, the 17-year-old played by Timothée Chalamet, simply stares into a crackling fireplace as tears well in his eyes. He presumably is reflecting on his tryst with Oliver, Armie Hammer’s 24-year-old grad student who visited Elio’s Italian home for the summer. And on Elio’s own father’s life in the closet, revealed to him toward the end of the film. And maybe on his future, perched as he is on the cusp of adulthood, and having just had an affair that felt life-changing.
The audience should be reflecting on those things, too. It’s possible, though, they’d be considering something surely not on Elio’s mind: AIDS. At least, that was the case
