Summary
On the bus, Oliver sits next to Elio and smiles at him. Sufjan Stevens plays again and we see Oliver and Elio running through a forested area, calling each other's names. They run towards a giant, misty waterfall.
Later, they arrive back at the room in which they are staying, giggling as they set their bags on the bed. They walk through the town at night, and Oliver sings jubilantly. In the shadows, they embrace and begin to kiss, when suddenly Oliver hears The Psychedelic Furs song from earlier, and pulls Elio down the street to a car where some Italians are dancing to the song.
Oliver dances with a woman to the song, then pulls her aside to the shadows to dance. Elio sits on the curb and watches, confused by Oliver's inconsistency. Suddenly, he vomits from his apparent intoxication. Seeing it, Oliver laughs and runs towards him. As they walk home, Elio clutches Oliver and stares at him, and they kiss passionately against the wall.
That night, Elio sleeps in the bed and Oliver looks over at him, flashing to memories of all their intimate moments. Sitting down on the bed, he stares at the boy, looking conflicted.
The next day, Oliver leaves. At the train station, he hugs Elio tenderly, holding him a moment, before boarding the train. Elio nods and Oliver goes. After sitting on a bench for a moment, Elio calls his mother and asks to be picked up, crying as he asks.
In the car home, Elio cries and his mother touches his shoulder sympathetically. In the town square, Marzia spots Elio and comes to greet him. She tells him she read the book he gave her, poems by Antonia Pozzi. She then tells him, "I'm not mad at you, I love you," and Elio nods. Holding out her hand, Marzia asks if they are still friends, and Elio asks, "For life?" "For life," she says, and they hug.
After a few days at home, Elio goes to visit his father in a study. "We missed you at dinner," Perlman says, and Elio sits down on the couch beside him. Perlman notes that Elio and Oliver had a special friendship, saying, "You're too smart not to know how rare, how special, what you two had was." Elio clearly doesn't want to talk about Oliver, but Perlman is intent on telling his son that his connection with Oliver was special.
Perlman delivers a lengthy monologue about accepting his son, and urges Elio to allow himself to feel all his feelings, saying, "In my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away, to pray that their sons land on their feet. But I am not such a parent. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster, that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything—what a waste!"
Perlman then tells Elio that he has never had a homosexual relationship like Elio has, even though he has gotten close and wanted to. He tells Elio to celebrate the fact that a beautiful thing has happened. "Does mom know?" Elio asks. Smiling, Perlman says, "I don't think she does."
The scene shifts to some time later, and we see the house in the snow. Inside, a servant lights a menorah, as Elio comes in and hugs the cook, wishing her a happy Hanukah. Coming into the living room, Elio sits on the couch for a moment, when suddenly the phone rings.
It's Oliver on the other end, and Elio is delighted to hear his voice. "I miss you," Elio says, to which Oliver replies, "I miss you too, very much," before telling Elio he is getting married next spring. "You never said anything," Elio says, trying to mask his sorrow, and Oliver tells him he's been seeing a woman on-and-off for the previous six years.
Mr. and Mrs. Perlman get on the other receiver and he tells them the good news. They congratulate him and hang up to let him speak to Elio. Elio notes that his parents know about their affair, and Oliver admits to telling Perlman. "You're lucky. My father would have carted me off to a correctional facility."
"Elio, Elio," Elio says into the phone, to which Oliver responds, "Oliver...I remember everything."
Elio goes into the dining room and picks up a coin, flipping it. He then wanders over to the crackling fireplace and stares into it, weeping despondently.
Analysis
Nature is as much a character in the film as are the actual human characters. It is not incidental that the love story is set against the beautiful backdrop of rural Northern Italy, and Guadagnino does not shy away from shooting images of natural beauty in all its splendor. On their trip to the country, we see Elio and Oliver from a distance, running along the edge of a great green hill, then towards a misty waterfall. Their identities and their connection to one another are dwarfed by the majesty of the setting, and the viewer is left to gape at the wonders of the natural world in which they have found themselves.
The natural setting makes the love story seem like something out of a fairy tale, some kind of fable in which princesses and knights meet on mountainsides. Its fable-esque quality is not only aesthetic, but thematic, as we see that the affair is more real for Elio than it is for Oliver. Elio is attentive to Oliver and wants to spend lots of time together, but Oliver is distractible and inconsistent, one moment kissing him, and the next, dancing with a woman he does not know. Thus their romantic connection is one that is alternately romantic and fraternal, and proves ultimately very confusing to the impressionable young Elio.
Elio is completely upended emotionally by his affair with Oliver. The love that he feels for him has changed him in important ways, and Guadagnino shows this shift and his ambiguous heartache through shots of actor Timothée Chalamet's face. In the square when Oliver dances with the woman to the Psychedelic Furs, we see Elio watching him, heartbroken and intoxicated, unable to fully understand his own jealousy. Then, after Oliver's train leaves, we see Elio as he sits on a bench, unsure of how to process his own feelings or know what to do next.
In many ways, the film is not about homosexuality or gayness as an identity, but about homoeroticism as it is embedded in the social codes of a certain brand of patriarchy and masculinity, one which has its precedence in ancient times. In his discussion with his father, Elio learns that Perlman has come close to his own homoerotic "friendships," as he calls them. Perlman comforts his son not only by telling him he accepts him, but by indoctrinating him into an ethic of masculinity to which he himself belongs. At the end of their conversation, Elio asks his father if his mother knows about his gay affair, and Perlman smiles warmly while telling his son that she doesn't. Part of the transmission taking place in this scene is not about acceptance and understanding of queerness, but about homoeroticism and homosociality as it exists apart from the world of women.
Elio takes his father's advice to heart, allowing himself to feel all of his emotions surrounding the affair with Oliver and Oliver's betrayal to marry a woman. The final shot depicts Elio staring into the fire, the orange light bouncing off his face as he weeps. Guadagnino frames his face in a tight close-up. His hair and clothing are now more androgynous, and he weeps plainly, unashamed by his own feelings of heartbreak and his sense of hopelessness.
