BONUS POST: Call Me By Your Name and Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

Yeah, I know it's not Friday. Don't worry, I'll post on Friday too. My husband, the amazing man that he is, offered to allow me to have a Double Feature Saturday at the local art house movie theatre (not that local, actually - the other side of town). So, he took the kids to Inflatable Wonderland and I spent 6 blissful hours enjoying two movies I've wanted to see for a long time.

Call Me By Your Name
Release: November 24, 2017
Rating: R
Production Company: Sony Pictures Classic
Director: Luca Guadagnino
My Rating: 10/10
Themes: sexuality, coming of age, star-crossed love
Content or Trigger Warnings: sexuality

I just have to get this out of the way before I go on. I loved this movie. Loved it. I wish I could watch it again right now. It was so beautiful and pitch-perfect, so expect some gushing in the following comments. I'm not exaggerating with my rating of 10 out of 10.

Set in the summer of 1983, we find Elio (Timothee Chalamet), who is a precocious and introverted 17-year-old at his parent's beautiful summer home in Northern Italy. His father, who is a professor annually invites home a grad student to stay with them and study. This summer, that student is Oliver (Armie Hammer) - Jewish, like Elio, ruggedly handsome, and thoroughly American.  After a large portion of the summer dancing around the topic, the two give in to requited feelings and have a beautiful, passionate love affair that ends far too soon when Oliver has to go back to America and, later we find out, and on-and-off-again relationship with a woman. You can probably guess the rest.

While the plot line is the stuff of typical bittersweet summer romance, what makes this film really soar, narratively, is how absolutely real and authentic it feels every step of the way. A storyline that could easily become cheesy never once strays there. It's pure and even innocent. It's a beautiful love story. In fact, I'll go so far as to say it's one of the most beautiful and captivating love stories I've ever seen on film. Yes, I believe that. Elio is innocent but not cartoonishly so. He knows what he wants, he doesn't mind taking it. Oliver is not some Harlequin fantasy, his feelings for Elio are real, deep, and vulnerable. Both of them want each other so badly, both of them are honest enough with themselves - eventually - to be unguarded and pure with each other.

Some will say the love they share, and the way things unfold is a little too perfect, a bit idyllic. Well, sure. The entire setting is idyllic, from Elio's gorgeous summer home, to the perfect swimming holes, the quaint and charming town, the parents who understand you and don't judge, the Italian countryside. Really, the beauty of this film cannot be overstated, and the warmth and love within Elio's family unit is something that I know I longed for while watching. Hell, even Oliver's dancing is charming as hell. But, in my opinion, having a love story that was so real, vibrant, and pure that didn't need to have added plot bunnies of homophobia, cheating, lying, manipulation, misunderstanding only served to make the movie better - less predictable. We've seen all of that before. This film didn't need contrived plot devices.

As you can understand, when Oliver eventually must leave, Elio is heartbroken. What follows is one of the most beautiful monologues in LGBTQ+ movie history. Instead of an awkward father hmm-hawing around for the right thing to say to his son who is heartbroken over another man, Mr. Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg) accepts his son with no qualifiers, validates his feelings, encourages him to feel it and not to try to 'get over' how much it hurts. He knows Elio and Oliver had something special and he articulates that to Elio. It was a really powerful scene that left me a total wreck.

I'll finish with the chemistry and acting. Chalamet and Hammer ooze sensuality on screen in a way that has you longing for them to touch from the minute they meet. The movie keeps you waiting but the chemistry is always crackling. The acting is superb on all counts, but I give special nod to Timothee Chalamet and Michael Stuhlbarg, the former who shows such adeptness at complicated subtle emotions and the latter who stole nearly every scene he was in.

Go see this movie. It's easily my favorite movie of 2017.


Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
Release: November 10, 2017
Rating: R
Production Company: Fox Searchlight
Director: Martin McDonagh
My Rating: 9/10
Themes: justice, police brutality, injustice, vigilantism
Content or Trigger Warnings: language

Francis McDermott is a force to be reckoned with as Mildred, mother of a rape and murder victim in a small town in Missouri. Every part of her screams 'bad ass', and at the same time, she is vulnerable and deeply, deeply sad. There can never be enough good said about Ms. McDermott's acting, to be frank, and this role was written just for her. 

The script blends deeply troubling and upsetting scenarios with humor seamlessly. One minute you are laughing, the next, well...you are righteously pissed. It has all the makings of a good film and it is one. I'm not sure I'd label it as the best film of the year. Still, I'm not going to hold the Hollywood Foreign Press responsible for setting my expectations too high. It was a great movie that I thoroughly enjoyed watching.

Frustrated, with no idea how to get police attention back on her daughter's cold case, Mildred rents three billboards on a rarely used road near her house to ask: Raped while dying, still no arrests? What now, Chief Willoughby? And, of course, things are not all quite as simple as they seem. It turns out that Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) is actually a pretty good guy - a police officer who hasn't forgotten her daughter's case, but has no leads. Of course, there is the shitty cop (Sam Rockwell) who is also a racist. And while he's those things, he runs deeper too. Mildred, though, is single-minded in her efforts to get police searching for her daughter's murderer, if not only for her own peace but to protect other women out here. 

The real magic of this movie is in the dialogue. Mildred delivers some excellent mini-monologues gouging holes into 'the system' be it police, religion, or society at large. I wanted to stand up and cheer when she told the town priest that, like The Bloods and The Crips in LA, he was 'culpable' in the abuse of boys by the Church. 'You joined a gang, man.' She spits at him. It's brilliant. She highlights how the police waste time harassing and beating people of color but not solving real crimes. She puts a voice to the 'he said/she said' argument that seemingly always fails the victim. The script is rich with social commentary and gives a foul-mouthed, bad ass voice to women who are sick of being told to sit patiently and wait for justice.