Why is it that in a film so enthralled by the concepts of love and passion, there is surprisingly little of both to be felt throughout? You can certainly see that love and passion play out on screen, but there’s a difference between seeing and feeling. All the more power to those who have been able to do both for this film, to those who have found something to viscerally connect to. However, there’s something glaringly missing for me, a huge disconnect between the supposed emotional foundation and the execution of the romance. The interactions between Elio and Oliver feel overwhelmingly physical, something that in theory should be completely fine because sexual maturation is an important element of the story (interestingly enough, Guadagnino seems to shy away from actually showing them having sex). In practice, though, there is simply very little depth that feeds into the physicality, probably because the interactions between the two never truly become elevated beyond the simple push and pull of surface level attraction. We get a lot of scenes between them, but not enough time with them, if that makes sense.
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