Luca Guadagnino, the Italian writer-director of I Am Love and A Bigger Splash, winds back his flamboyance to powerful effect in this languorous, sun-filled and wonderfully empathetic tale of first love.

 

Timothée Chalamet is riveting as Elio, a smart, musically gifted 17-year-old hanging out for the summer of 1983 with his parents at their villa in northern Italy. Elio is obliged to move out of his room to make way for his father’s American research assistant, 20-something Oliver (Armie Hammer).

 

Brash and handsome, Oliver immediately sets local hearts aflutter and irritates the hell out of Elio. But the two increasingly find themselves together. A dance of attraction and retreat gradually consumes them both.

Elio’s leap into emotional danger touches everyone in his idyllic world: the depth of understanding granted to him in this film feels like a gift to every 17-year-old there ever was or ever shall be. 

 

“Luca Guadagnino likes to show off his homeland as a place of sensual self-discovery… In attaching sinuous style and casual sexiness to a universal ache, Guadagnino has come away with real wisdom. Sweet and salty, his movie burns like a suntan.” — Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out NY, USA

Visit nziff.co.nz to see the full schedule of films on at the 2017 New Zealand International Film Festival. 

“A swirling wonder, a film about coming of age, about the secrets of youth, the magic of summer, the beauty of Italy.”

— Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair, USA