I just saw ‘Call Me By Your Name’…

… and it was very, very long.

Spoilers

I’m gonna keep this relatively short, because it’s late, and I’m ready to go to bed.

Call Me By Your Name is a lesser version of Moonlight. That’s not to say it’s a bad film, or even really a similar one, it’s just that the two have a lot in common, and I can’t help but compare them.

Where Moonlight is one of the most stunningly vibrant and gorgeous films of the decade, and definitely of 2016, this is good-looking, but not on the level of, say, Blade Runner 2049 or Phantom Thread.

The acting in Moonlight is phenomenal, and the characters feel incredibly tangible. No one in this film is given a role that challenging. They did a fine job, but they aren’t doing anything fantastic, especially not Timothée Chalamet, who I think was over-hyped as shit.

The pacing in Moonlight is excellent. The film is split into three very obvious sections/acts, and whereas in another film, that would bother me, in Moonlight, it adds to the pacing by reminding you of just how much time these characters have lived through. Call Me By Your Name is terribly paced. It’s a film about a fleeting, short moment in these characters lives, and yet it feels longer than Blade Runner, which it is 30 minutes shorter than. I can tolerate that in a theater, where I feel obligated to stay attentive to the screen, but if I was watching at home, I would have been browsing Reddit for a large portion of the film.

Now, I do like this film. I especially like the way it looks, it’s surprisingly refreshing. But overall, I just don’t enjoy it as much as a lot of other films from the past year. In terms of the Best Picture noms I’ve seen, this is my second least favorite, above Shape of Water, below Dunkirk. I expect this to change once I’ve seen Darkest Hour, but that’s another review.

7/10

Thank you, and remember kids, girlfriend in a coma, I know, I know, it’s serious.