Manal Dhahi

I watched Call Me by Your Name in April 2025 — and to be honest, I wasn’t even excited about it at first. It had been sitting on my watchlist for a while, and I finally gave it a chance. What happened after that was unexpected: the film quietly swept me away. Timothée Chalamet’s performance left me in awe. He didn’t need big words or dramatic gestures — just his presence, his eyes, his silences… everything felt real. I truly felt what Elio and Oliver felt: the hesitation, the desire, and the quiet pain of wanting someone in a world that may not welcome that love. One of the most beautiful things about the film is how many scenes had no music — just silence, footsteps, breathing, the sound of life. It made everything more raw, more human, more real. And this quote stayed with me long after the credits rolled: “The meaning of the river flowing is not that all things are changing so that we cannot encounter them twice, but that some things stay the same only by changing.” Love, memory, even who we are — they don’t stay by resisting change… they stay through change. Call Me by Your Name isn’t just a film — it’s a quiet mirror that lingers in the heart.