The Book Was Gayer
Why do we mute queer sex on film?
Despite the academy’s demonstrated preference for interspecies sexuality, the best movie that dealt with nonnormative sexuality in 2017 was Call Me by Your Name. Set in a lush unnamed town somewhere in northern Italy, Young Hollywood’s new king, Timothée Chalamet, and Winklevi Armie Hammer played Elio and Oliver, young aesthetes who romance each other during a single Italian summer. The boys flirt and fuck and hurt each other; they ignore each other, then lavish one another with attention. When they are eventually forced to separate, they do so tearfully — all of this unfolding in an elegantly decrepit mansion, under the shade of fruit trees bursting with harvest. The film’s sexiness is derived not simply from the attractiveness of the two actors and their tendency to touch each other, but from the allure of the production design and from the moments in which Elio and Oliver take silent notice of each other, watching each other, ripe with potential energy.
First published in 2007 and reprinted in December 2017 with a gorgeous royal blue cover, author André Aciman’s novel on which with the movie was based is as lush as the film adaptation. What I found surprising…
