I really wanted to like this film due to the hype. I am a gay man; I love films about love relationships between beautiful men; I love films with minimum characters and lovely intimate settings; I am 'pro' art house films which are all about characters and take their time. But this didn't work. Firstly, it was really too dark to see. But my main problem was that the relationship between Cherry and Cig just didn't ring true. The film jumped straight into the subject, and we missed a lot of potential character development. OK, a few small things happened between them which were nice (e.g. The awkward silence). Nothing wrong with that! And Cherry is meant to be naive, finding himself etc. But then, he suddenly says to Cig that he needs to go, and Cig says okay - but there really hasn't been enough evidence of that building up. I do realize that this is a short film, restricting the amount of scenes we would be expected to see - well that made me struggle to see sincerity in this gorgeous bunch of nothingness. The acting on the other hand is really nice. The way he holds a close-up all throughout the film, showing a range of emotions, is very impressive indeed. I can remember so clearly what it was like at 19 having my first sexual encounter with another man (OK yes, 50 years ago) to kind of enjoy feeling sad and then elated about love and sex, and the talent shows that brilliantly. But they are not enough to save this film, and nor the beautiful imagery, that does such an excellent job of channelling Call Me By Your Name.
