Posted on 1.24.17: As Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name is largely spoken in English and particularly given what a flat-out masterpiece it is, I don’t see why this sensual Italian-shot drama shouldn’t be a Best Picture contender a year from now.” And look what happened!

This is a landmark film that deserves its day in the Oscar sun. For Call Me By Your Name is not so much about a one-on-one relationship (although that is certainly a central thread) as much as the hearts and minds of a small, mostly English-speaking community in northern Italy (the film was primarily shot in Guadagnino’s home town of Crema), and how they all observe, absorb, nourish and comment upon in little affecting ways the central, slow-build love story between Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer.

What counts is that the mood and drift of this film isn’t really about straight or gay or anything in between. It’s about “being there” in every possible comprehension of that term — about sensual samplings, summer aromas, warm sunshine, fresh water and that swoony, lifty feeling, etc. You’ve read this stuff over and over, but after a ten-month wait CMNBYN (98% Rotten Tomatoes, 95% Metacritic) is finally starting to appear on commercial screens.