Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool 

At his family’s home in Italy in the summer of 1983, 17-year-old Elio (Timotheé Chalamet) finds himself attracted to his professor father’s research assistant Oliver (Armie Hammer), and he and the older man embark on an affair. “You don’t just watch Luca Guadagnino’s movies, you swoon into them. What’s most striking about these movies is their extraordinary palpable quality. Passion and drama are expressed in words, deeds and surging music but also in the vibrant, visceral textures that envelop his characters — the cool marble, succulent fruit, shadow and light, sheens of sweat. These are movies that turn your gaze into near-touch, inviting you to see and almost caress their sun-warmed bodies. Mr. Guadagnino’s latest is another ravishment of the senses, though this time there’s a strong narrative tethering all the churning feelings and sensuous surfaces… The charismatic Mr. Chalamet, Mr. Hammer and Michael Stuhlbarg — whose brilliant delivery of a tricky speech pierces the heart and, crucially, the movie’s lustrous patina — transform beauty into feeling. In one alive, vulnerable and life-altering summer, Elio’s desire finds its purpose. He loves, and in loving, he becomes.” — New York Times