Elio and Oliver’s affair begins slowly with each circling the other at a distance, conveying the kind of nonchalance that’s a shield for interest. Mr. Guadagnino is very good at catching the indolent drift of long summer days, with their sleepiness and bared limbs. Mr. Guadagnino almost can’t help making everything look intoxicating, yet he also makes you believe in this family’s reality. Mr. Guadagnino avoids directly engaging the difference in Elio and Oliver’s ages, which might have forced him to explore the underside of his sumptuous surfaces to greater, messier effect. Instead, Mr. Guadagnino leans on beauty, as when Elio’s father poetically speaks to an increasingly agitated Oliver about the “ageless ambiguity” of some male statues (“as if they’re daring you to desire them”).

Source: New York Times November 22, 2017 23:37 UTC