Call Me by Your Name (2017)

Bike rides, swims, apricot juice, another bike ride: the first hour of Call Me by Your Name is a summer vacation you watch from the porch. If you check the clock, you’re not wrong to. Oliver says ’Later’ instead of goodbye, and for a long stretch he’s just as hard to read, a confident grin the movie never quite lets us inside. Marzia, the local girl Elio spends time with, deserved more than being a side road. But Timothée Chalamet is extraordinary. He plays Elio as the smartest person at every dinner and completely lost about his own heart, and he shows it through the piano and his restless hands. Armie Hammer dancing badly to The Psychedelic Furs is a goofy delight. Michael Stuhlbarg, as the gentlest dad in movies, gives a quiet talk late in the film that rearranges everything before it. An 8.6 because it’s slow on purpose and the patience pays off. $30.19 says you spend tomorrow trying to say ’Later’ as casually as Oliver and end up sounding like a substitute teacher.

What works: Timothée Chalamet gives a remarkably open, unguarded performance, and Michael Stuhlbarg’s late scene as Elio’s father is one of the kindest moments in modern movies.

What doesn’t: The first half drifts for a long time, and Oliver stays so guarded that his side of the story feels thinner than Elio’s.

Who it’s for: Patient viewers who love slow summer stories, piano music and movies about the first time your heart gets ahead of you.