Ever since it first premiering at the Sundance film festival earlier this year, Luca Guadagnino’s *Call Me by Your Name *has only gone from strength to strength. First, receiving rave reviews from literally everybody, and then going on to become this year’s highest grossing film per-theatre, beating Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird to the top spot in the process.
Set in northern Italy during the summer of ’83, Call Me by Your Name is a modern adaptation of the André Aciman novel of the same title. The plot revolves around a 17-year-old boy named Elio (Timothée Chalamet) who falls in love with a 24-year-old student called Oliver played by Armie Hammer.
The film explores a variety of themes including love, loneliness, homophobia and even anti-Semitism, as director Guadagnino poignantly draws upon the experiences of the Jewish author, Aciman, via the two main protagonists. Although, perhaps the most important and resounding theme in the movie is that of sexuality.
It’s not very often that gay love stories make it into mainstream, Hollywood cinema (with the fairly recent exception of 2016’s *Moonlight *and 2013’s Blue is the Warmest Colour), and it’s even less common to see openly gay men as the main protagonists.
Usually, queer people/ couples only ever end up as a cute accessories or tag-alongs to more palatable, straight couples. However, Guadagnino bravely throws caution to the wind in Call Me by Your Name and does completely the opposite, which seems to have paid off too. Call Me By Your Name is now second only to 2005 hit Brokeback Mountain, as the highest grossing gay film of all time.
Unsurprisingly, the film is already expected to clean up pretty nicely at the Oscars with awards for acting, direction and screenplay all likely to be won at the next Academy Awards.
Call Me by Your Name’s first award show appearance begins this afternoon at the Gotham Independent Film Awards where it’s nominated for four prizes.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.