Though the genre did of course exist before 2017, it feels as though Call Me By Your Name kicked off a boom in the dreamy, summertime coming-of-age movie, of the artier and indie-r variety. If you’ve traveled the festival circuit in the last decade or so, you’ve seen myriad examples of the form: teenagers in sun-kissed locales making first discoveries about themselves, about sexuality, about the grownup world rushing at them.
Some have been quite good — the recent Cannes standout La Gradiva comes to mind — while others have been perhaps a little too ethereal, or too interior. Some derivativeness has taken hold in the space, a repetition of tone and tempo that makes many of these films seem like elegantly shot carbon copies of each other. It’s the same sunny melancholy, the same furtive explorations of self — and, quite often, muted queer undertones. At this point I would happily welcome a raunchy teen comedy like we used to get all the time. Enough with the pensive mood pieces; bring back the pie f**king!
The Color of the Sun
The Bottom Line
What I didn't do on my summer vacation.
