This was an amazing movie. I’d heard good things about it, but never found the time to give it a watch until now. The store is about a gay summer romance between a teenage boy and a 24-year-old doctoral student in Italy. Elio, the teenager, lives with his parents who host Oliver, the doctoral student, at their home while he studies with Elio’s father.
Elio is a normal teenage boy. He has a female friend who we hangs out with and occasionally beds. He rides his bike, swims, and writes music. He’s in a loving family and, by all accounts, is quite happy. Oliver arrives and sweeps him off his feet.
I’m guessing that Elio is gay, or at least bi. It’s obvious from the beginning that he likes Oliver. Oliver obviously likes Elio, but they’re slow to get together because it’s the early 80s and being gay isn’t quite mainstream yet. They eventually have time to themselves, and their love explodes.
Elio and Oliver begin sleeping together and it’s clear that this is Elio’s first gay love experience. They’re very tender together and everyone sees it. Luckily for them, Elio’s father is completely supportive and even arranges for Oliver and Elio to spend a few days together in another town before Oliver goes home.
The movie ends with Elio’s heart breaking at the news that Oliver is engaged to be married. He had held on to the hope that his Oliver would come visit again and they’d pick up again where they left off.
After Elio comes back from the trip he’d taken with Oliver, his father tells him he knew that Elio and Oliver had something special. He reassured his son that it was okay and that he knew Elio and Oliver had fallen in love. I think this was the most touching scene in the entire picture. How many gay boys would give anything to have their father help them through their first heartbreak?
I could identify with Elio in the end. My first love was with a straight boy in college. We were really into each other and spent a lot of time together. We had pet names for one another. We never had sex, though, which I regret sometimes. He decided to join the Marines in order to pay for school and I was the one who dropped him off at the airport to go. I remember sobbing after he got out of the car. My heart was breaking into a million pieces as I knew we’d never get to have that time together again.
My second love was another boy in college who was gay. Again, we spent loads of time together and we did have sex. I would go back to the town our university was in to visit him after I finished school. I’d rent a motel room so we could have some privacy and enjoy one another’s company.
The last time I visited, he was reluctant to come join me. After what seemed like hours begging to just see him, he came and told me he couldn’t be with me anymore. I know he had his reasons, but this one traumatized me, and I carried it for over 20 years. He ghosted me and I’ve never been able to contact him since. I think not knowing if I did something or if I was just that terrible stuck with me the most. When Oliver told Elio he’d been engaged to be married in the spring, I’m sure Elio felt the same way I did.
I hope Elio finds another person to love. I hope he is able to live his life out and not have to hide his being gay from the world. His father was right when he said this type of love is very special and very rare.
