I first became aware of “him” because of Léon: The Professional.
I was still in elementary school, and for the first time in my life, a movie shook me emotionally. I cried uncontrollably and was left with such an overwhelming sense of loss that I could barely recover. I was still too young to understand, let alone process, what kind of emotion I was feeling.
I became completely obsessed.
I put a huge poster on my bedroom wall, cut my hair like Mathilda’s, wore a crocheted beanie and shorts. I wanted to become a hitman, but unfortunately, there was no Léon living in my neighborhood.
For one of my summer vacation assignments, I even made what was practically an entire book about how incredible Léon was.
Even now, as an adult, there is no question that it remains my favorite film of all time.
I think the feeling is probably something close to your first love.
From then on, I fell completely in love with “him.”
For someone like me, who did not grow up in the happiest of homes, he became a father, sometimes a mother, and someone who taught me all kinds of things. As an only child, he was also the one who made me forget what loneliness felt like.
Then I watched Trainspotting, and it gave me a fierce determination never to touch drugs.
Honestly, I think the slogan “Watch Trainspotting right now” would be far more effective than some stiff anti-drug message saying, “Just say no!”
(Though, of course, part of what makes Trainspotting such a great film is exactly that exhilarating, breakneck energy of its drug-fueled world. Cinematically speaking, that feeling is part of what makes it so damn good.)
And somehow, “he” is the one thing I have never grown tired of, despite being the kind of person who gets excited about things quickly and loses interest just as fast.
He always takes me somewhere new. He gives me adventures. He makes my heart race.
When I watched Basquiat, I was inspired to fill my room with strange little creations of my own.
When I watched Pretty Woman, I briefly bought into the American dream that becoming a prostitute might somehow lead me to a devastatingly charming Richard Gere.
After watching Spider-Man, I checked my hands over and over again to see if webs might shoot out of them.
But he also taught me things that mattered.
After watching Kids, I thought more seriously about taking care of my own body.
The Godfather, another masterpiece I rank just behind Léon, made me fascinated by a world of men that I, as a woman, knew nothing about.
The Pianist taught me about the stupidity of war, and about looking at a person’s heart rather than judging them by the country or background they come from.
Life Is Beautiful taught me that even the hardest moments can sometimes be survived with humor.
If I had never met “him,” I honestly do not know whether I would still be here in this world today.
I want to spend my life giving something back to him.
Thank you, movies.
The story takes place in the beautiful countryside of northern Italy.
Elio is seventeen. Oliver is twenty-four and has come to stay with Elio’s family while helping his father with his academic work.
The world the two of them inhabit feels almost unreal, as though someone carefully cut Elio and Oliver out of a beautifully illustrated paper doll book and gently placed them onto a vivid landscape painted by a genius.
The sky is an impossible shade of blue. A soft breeze moves through the air like the breath of Venus herself. Apricots, bright as if they had been painted orange by hand, hang from magnificent trees.
There is an enormous old villa, aged just enough to feel perfect. On the terrace are chairs that look terribly uncomfortable, yet somehow, surrounded by the warmth of the people gathered there, their discomfort does not seem to matter at all.
When I think back on the film, details like these keep returning to me, one after another.
That is how vividly this quiet summer has stayed in my mind.
I can almost hear people whispering, “You’re only watching it now?” After all, Call Me by Your Name has long been considered a modern classic.
If I were to answer in the way Elio’s father might, perhaps I would say:
“You are lucky enough to be feeling for the first time something that many people have already felt. Isn’t that something to envy?”
Yes. Exactly.
It is that feeling you have only once—the feeling that comes immediately after seeing a film for the very first time, something those who have already watched it can never experience again.
I realize I have just taken something completely obvious and made it sound profound.
But jokes aside, in a way, that is exactly what this film is about.
I found myself drawn to its sense of “nothing much happening.” That quietness completely captured me.
So what do I mean by that?
For most of the film, Elio and Oliver move between only a handful of places: the villa, the terrace, the garden, the river, and the town.
The cast is similarly small. There are the two of them, Elio’s parents, the household staff, and a girl from Elio’s circle of friends.
If someone wanted to call the film sparse, they probably could.
There are few locations, few characters, and no particularly dramatic emotional arc. The story does not constantly rise and fall in search of big moments.
And yet, the summer Elio and Oliver share becomes something unforgettable—not only for them, but for us watching them.
Perhaps the film feels literary because it is based on André Aciman’s novel of the same name.
A novel can make the reader’s heart race through careful attention to small details. In much the same way, this film treats its backgrounds, dialogue, gestures, and silences with extraordinary delicacy.
And then, of course, there is Timothée Chalamet as Elio.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that this role seems to have been waiting for him.
In fact, watching him, you almost want to ask whether the novel itself was written with him in mind.
(I bought the original novel almost immediately, so if reading it changes my opinion, perhaps I will have to write another column.)
Oliver, played by Armie Hammer, is also compelling—mature, intelligent, and effortlessly charismatic at twenty-four.
But I love Elio.
Especially his eyes.
There is something in the way Elio looks at the world that seems capable of pulling you inward.
And it is not simply because Timothée Chalamet is beautiful.
I have seen quite a few of his films, but this particular expression belongs to Elio alone.
The way he watches Oliver carries all the intensity and vulnerability that a seventeen-year-old on the edge of adulthood can possibly contain.
I came across several reviews saying they could not understand why Elio and Oliver were attracted to one another.
That surprised me.
So that is the part some viewers could not accept.
For me, it was the opposite.
What moved me was precisely the idea that when one person is truly drawn to another, there does not always need to be a reason.
I thought that was beautiful.
And just as Elio’s father later suggests, meeting someone who can make you feel that way is itself a kind of good fortune. Not everyone gets to experience it.
At its heart, the film is a pure love story between Elio and Oliver, but the relationship between Elio and his parents is just as rich.
One of my favorite scenes is when his father explains the origin of the word “apricot.”
I will not go into detail because of spoilers, but anyone who has not yet seen the film will probably understand what I mean once they reach that scene.
Another scene I love comes during a power outage, when Elio’s mother reads aloud from a sixteenth-century French story while translating it.
“Is it better to speak or to die?”
For those who have already seen the film, I imagine that line has stayed with you too.
I began writing this almost immediately after watching the film, before the warmth it left in me had time to fade.
Perhaps that is why this piece became longer than I expected. I found myself unwilling to cut anything.
There is still so much more I could say.
But perhaps it is better to stop here, leaving just a little sense of longing behind—much like the summer in this film itself.
—Midori Nanashi
When I hear the word Moonlight, I still think of Sailor Moon.
That probably says enough about what generation I belong to. I’m Midori.
Someone you cared for beyond friendship.
A dimly lit beach beneath beautiful moonlight.
Deep blue reflected across the sea.
Feelings finally spoken aloud.
A silence that seems to stop time, drawing two people closer.
Emotions overflowing. White sand clenched tightly in one hand.
A brief, fragile moment that somehow becomes an everlasting story.
This time, I want to write about Moonlight (2016), one of the most moving films released by A24—a production company that, in my experience, tends to attract people with pretty good taste.
If you have not seen the film yet, what did you imagine while reading the passage above?
And no, I do not mean the Sailor Moon part.
Maybe you pictured a woman longing for a male friend she has never been able to forget. Or perhaps a man carrying feelings for a woman who has always been close to him.
But that, I think, is exactly where the unwavering beauty of Moonlight lies.
Its beauty exists first in the feeling of the scene itself.
Because this is, in fact, a delicately told love story between two men.
And yet I can say with complete confidence that if the story were about two women, or a man and a woman, its emotional beauty would not change in the slightest.
That is because the film reaches much deeper than gender.
It understands the complicated inner life of a human being.
The story follows one man through three stages of his life: Little, Chiron, and Black.
Little begins as a timid, vulnerable boy, gradually learning how to survive in the world around him. At the same time, quietly and almost imperceptibly, a deep love begins to take shape.
It is difficult not to be moved by it.
LGBTQ+ people exist across cultures and communities all over the world. Being drawn to another person is one of the most natural human experiences there is, and yet there are still cultures and individuals who struggle to accept that reality.
What makes Moonlight especially powerful is the way this conflict is placed within Black culture and within an environment where masculinity is expressed with almost intimidating force.
That hardened image of “manhood” makes the fragile emotions underneath it feel even more exposed.
The contrast is devastatingly effective.
My favorite section of the film is the final chapter, when Chiron has grown into Black and transformed almost beyond recognition.
Black is played by Trevante Rhodes, a former track-and-field athlete. Interestingly, Rhodes was apparently first considered for the role of Kevin, Chiron’s childhood friend.
But there was something about the vulnerability beneath his strongly masculine appearance that made him feel right for Black instead.
When I learned that, it made perfect sense.
Because that is exactly what moved me about his performance.
He looks, in every conventional sense, like the embodiment of masculinity. And yet the tenderness he allows to surface is almost startlingly delicate.
That combination is what makes him so compelling.
The film’s story is beautiful enough on its own, but I would especially recommend paying attention to Rhodes’ performance.
Moonlight was also produced by Plan B Entertainment, the production company founded by Brad Pitt.
—Midori Nanashi