Call Me by Your Name - Ending Explained

The central plot of "Call Me by Your Name" follows the six-week summer romance between Elio and Oliver, which culminates in three intensely romantic days in Bergamo before Oliver must return to the United States. The departure is heartbreaking for Elio. After he returns home, his father, revealing he has known about the relationship all along, delivers a profoundly moving monologue. He tells Elio that the bond he and Oliver shared was rare and beautiful, and urges him not to bury his feelings but to embrace the pain along with the joy, confessing that he himself has never had such an experience.

The film's final twist arrives several months later, during Hanukkah. Oliver calls the Perlman family and speaks with Elio. During the call, he reveals that he is engaged to be married to a woman he had been dating on and off. The news shatters Elio. He addresses Oliver as "Elio," a final, heartbreaking invocation of their shared intimacy. Oliver, understanding, responds "Oliver," and tells him, "I remember everything," confirming the depth of his feelings before the call ends. The film concludes with a long, unbroken shot of Elio sitting in front of a fireplace, silently crying as he processes the news and the finality of their separation, while his parents unknowingly prepare dinner in the background. This ending solidifies the film's theme that such a perfect, idyllic love could not survive outside the bubble of that one summer, succumbing to the pressures of conventional life.

It's important to note that the film adapts only a portion of André Aciman's novel. The book continues for another twenty years, depicting a few brief, poignant reunions between Elio and Oliver, who is married with children. The film's decision to end on this note of immediate heartbreak gives it a more concentrated, tragic power, leaving Elio's future open-ended.

While the primary reading of the film is as a sincere and tragic first love story, some alternative interpretations have been discussed by critics and audiences. One perspective focuses on the power dynamics and age gap between the 17-year-old Elio and the 24-year-old Oliver. While the film portrays their relationship as consensual and loving within a safe environment, some viewers interpret the dynamic through a more critical lens, highlighting Elio's youth and vulnerability.

Another interpretation views the film less as a literal romance and more as a memory piece, an idealized and romanticized recollection of the past. This reading is supported by the dreamlike, hazy quality of the cinematography and the first-person perspective of the source novel. From this viewpoint, the story may not be an exact representation of events but rather Elio's subjective, nostalgic reconstruction of a formative summer, with all the heightened emotions and poetic license that memory entails.

Finally, the ending can be interpreted in different ways. The more optimistic reading, bolstered by Mr. Perlman's speech, is that Elio, though heartbroken, has become a more emotionally complete person through the experience. A more melancholy interpretation sees the ending as a tragic commentary on the societal pressures that force Oliver into a conventional life, suggesting that such pure, unguarded love is unsustainable in the real world. The final, unbroken shot of Elio's face allows for both interpretations: it is a portrait of profound grief, but also of profound feeling, a testament to having truly lived and loved.