Ranting On...Call Me By Your Name's Release Date

When I look to the fall movie season, few films have me as excited as Call Me By Your Name.  While I haven’t read the book, the reviews for it are rapturous, and the trailer was gorgeous.  Advance word on the picture is very strong, and already stars Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer seem to be a part of the Oscar discussion.  After last year’s Moonlight was so grand, I am thrilled to see another high-profile gay-themed movie follow in its footsteps, and will probably be catching it opening weekend when it arrives in theaters in late November.

The problem here is that I’ve basically had to give up Twitter in recent days because of all of the spoilers, whether or intentional or not, that are popping up on social media about the film.  Critiics’ screenings and sneak previews (honestly, I’m too frightened to figure out exactly what it was, but suffice it to say people who don’t usually comment on cinema that I follow on Twitter were watching the picture, so it can’t be exclusively film reviewers), have been piping in with 140 (and occasionally 280)-character odes to the movie, talking about tears and love and for some reason I’m sure I’ll find out when I see the movie, a plethora of peach emojis.

This bums me out, not just because of the green-eyed monster but because it’s hard to go in blind to a movie if I know things about it.  I have seen literally thousands of movies (I can confirm this after an exercise this past weekend that I did with my brother), so I know what even the least spoiler-y comments are code for, and as a general rule I like to go into a picture, once I’ve decided to see it, blind.  This isn’t really an option for movies during Oscar season, though, because of this sort of ridiculously staggered release, affecting not just through a movie like Call Me By Your Name, but other high-profile releases that aren’t biopics (where common knowledge informs you of the ending) such as The Shape of Water, Wonder Wheel, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

This gap in the movie calendar, where the elite get to see a movie through a festival or an advanced screening while the rest of us just sit around and wait, puts up a major divide between film fans, and in my opinion could be damaging to film’s survival in an era where it increasingly faces threats from television and the internet.  Oftentimes there can be weeks or even months between when a film has first started to be seen by the public and when the movie can get to other media markets, even those as large as my own where this movie will almost-certainly eventually play (I live in Minneapolis).  The movie industry loses a lot of its stamina by not allowing those that don’t live on the coasts to be able to interact with tastemakers on social media, taking away some of the fun.  By the time I see Call Me By Your Name at the end of November, they will have moved on to a different bauble, potentially one that I won’t have access to until Christmas.

This issue doesn’t arise with television or literally any other mainstream form of popular art.  You can participate in a major television event like the finales of Game of Thrones or Big Little Lies whether or not you live in Beverly Hills or Biloxi.  Same if you want to weigh in on Taylor Swift's latest music video or Celeste Ng's most recent page-turner.  As a result, the communal experience, and the increasingly vital effect of social media, is heightened because everyone can enjoy it at once.  If you want to go on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, you know that you run your own risk if you missed last night’s installment of The Walking Dead, as spoilers are a hazard, but with movies there’s no way of knowing whether or not someone is going to ruin a major picture for you because you don’t all have the same release dates.

Honestly, part of me wonders if this is an under-reported aspect of why non-blockbuster films have suffered at the Box Office in recent years.  In a different era, everyone in America would have needed to see Terms of Endearment or The Big Chill to be part of the national conversation, and even if the whole country didn't get the movie, the slower forms of communication gave you room to breath on the spoiler front.  However in an era where most communication happens via social media or electronically, having a movie in parts of the country and not others ruins the buzz.  This can be overcome with major releases (if Call Me By Your Name becomes a major Oscar contender, for example, it's doubtful this truly hurts his bottom line), but it's also sacrificing box office if it doesn't become a Best Picture nominee.  This staggered-release doesn't affect major movies like Wonder Woman or It, however, because you can see these movies at the same time as other people, so everyone is having a shared experience.

One could argue, of course, that there is something to a slow-building buzz in this case.  Having critics rave about Call Me About Your Name surely could get lay people involved in the movie.  But holding it SO far back, I just don't buy this.  Provided that IMDB is right & the producers don't move it up, Call Me By Your Name will reach arthouses across the country on November 24th, over seven weeks from now.  It seems like a BIG risk to assume that a gay-themed romance whose biggest star is the man behind The Man from UNCLE and The Lone Ranger can stay in the zeitgeist for seven weeks, particularly with a number of high-profile pictures coming out soon that could wash away its shimmer.

All this being said, I'll be seeing this as soon as it's available.  I'm not a lost ticket over something like this, and I'll find a way to avoid the spoilers.  But it's disappointing that Hollywood increasingly seems to care just for those film fans on the coasts, and not about those of us in Middle America, and then wonders why they never seem to get audiences for independent hits.  It feels like the mystery may lie in how they taunt us so long with these movies they won't let us see, that we just turn on the TV until they stop teasing.