Movies

Chalamet's Hit With 2 Oscars Was Still a Lame Adaptation of the Original Book

Chalamet's Hit With 2 Oscars Was Still a Lame Adaptation of the Original Book
Image credit: Legion-Media

Despite winning two Oscars, Timothee Chalamet's huge hit is not as good as the book.

A movie can have thousands of fans absolutely obsessed and launch its actors to stardom, but still be a disappointment as an adaptation of its source material.

That's exactly what happened to Call Me By Your Name — the 2017 hit based on André Aciman's eponymous novel.

The movie is set in the summer of 1983 in Italy. It follows the romantic relationship between 17-year-old Elio Perlman and Oliver, a 24-year-old assistant to Elio's father. The plot is based on the novel of the same title by André Aciman.

The argument over whether a book or a movie is better, is older than the world itself. And Call Me by Your Name is not an exception. Fans pointed out that the movie is missing a lot of crucial details to fully understanding the plot.

Is Call Me By Your Name Movie Bad?

Chalamet's Hit With 2 Oscars Was Still a Lame Adaptation of the Original Book - image 1

The great example of this is when Oliver was trying to give Elio a massage, and he pulled away from him. Many fans thought it was because Elio disliked Oliver. But in reality he liked him too much to receive something so intimate.

While the film visually captures the book perfectly, and while we can tell that Elio likes Oliver, it does not show how obsessed Elio is. The second he sees Oliver he is fully into him.

However, we shouldn’t forget that the book is written from Elio’s perspective. Most of the story takes place inside his mind. And while it can be represented as a voiceover in the movie, fans agree that it would ruin the vibe completely. So the director had to do an exquisite work using only body language.

“Elio is a person who constantly thinks, who has so many thought. It‘s so difficult to show that to the movie. I also often had the “oh that makes more sense” feeling when I read the book. But again; it‘s just so difficult to show how much he likes Oliver when he mostly just thinks it,” Redditor Hopeful_Patience8601 says.

But one thing everyone agrees on is that the movie, even if it is not perfect, still did an amazing job.

Watch Call Me by Your Name on Netflix, YouTube, Google Play, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV.