In 2007, Andre Aciman published the novel Call Me By Your Name, which was met with international acclaim. The story follows the gifted and cheeky 17-year-old Italian-American Elio Perlman through a formative summer.
Each year, Elio’s family spends summers at their villa in Italy, where they host a doctoral student for six weeks who assists Elio’s father, a professor, with academic work. Elio’s summertime life is the picture of bucolic bliss. In the year the book is set, the visiting student is a handsome, 24-year-old American named Oliver. When Oliver asks him how he spends his time, Elio responds nonchalantly, “Read books, transcribe music, swim at the river, go out at night. Over the course of an enchanted, sundrenched summer, the two young men fall in love and explore their awakening of their budding sensuality.
The recent film adaptation of Aciman’s book will screen at Upstate Films in Woodstock from December 22 though 28. David Sims of the Atlantic Review said of the movie, “Each element is carefully calibrated, but deployed with consummate grace—this is a film to rush to, and to then savor every minute of.”