Category: Arts

“Who knew that higher physics could be so sexy, so accessible—and so emotionally devastating?”

The description of this play doesn’t give away many details, but once I saw this line from a New York Times review of the play, which had a run on Broadway starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson, I was hooked. I love science and I love the arts, and it just gets better when they’re combined.

Constellations is about two people and the infinite pathways their relationship could follow. It’s not my usual type of show, but it sounds incredibly intriguing. I am really looking forward to seeing it.

The show is being performed by the Theatre Nova (410 W Huron Street). Tickets ($20) are on sale here. The show runs from January 26 through February 18. Showtimes are 8pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and 2pm on Sundays.

It is the special power of youth that one can transform a thousand times in the course of one lazy, Italian summer. That sense of self has not set yet. Perhaps it is a gift. A chance at change instead of stagnation. However, sometimes one simply exchanges the frustration of monotony for the near constant confusion of growing up into someone you don’t understand or maybe even like. It is this process of metamorphosis that 17 year old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) undergoes one summer break. Every year, his father, a renowned professor of archeology, invites older graduate students to live with the family in the small, country side Italian town. However, the summer of 1983 is immediately different. Oliver (Armie Hammer) is handsome, intelligent, and seems intent on disturbing all the regular rhythms and, perhaps even, the tedium that has built up one lazy summer, after lazy summer. He is forward and confident. He ends every conversation with a brisk “Later”, as if he will always return. At first, Elio handles his discomfort with Oliver with impertinence and distance. However, as the summer passes by, week by week, Elio is prompted to act upon his feelings, even if they may not fit what he may think of himself.

The glorious landscapes surrounding Elio aid both him and the audience as he embarks on this journey. The summer blooms brilliantly in a sumptuous, bountiful glory. Every tree in the family orchard is bursting with ripeness and every river runs cold and clear. Every swim is followed by a glass of freshly squeezed apricot juice. The Italian countryside begs to be explored, with its shady secret areas perfect for two lovers. It is a place that Elio is both intimately familiar with and yet, has never understood to its fullest extent. The eternal greenery and idyllic lifestyle that it encourages allows Elio and the viewer to imagine that perhaps summer will never end. He allows chances to repeatedly pass him by, even as his feelings for Oliver become stronger. But nature also acts as a prompting agent, urging Elio to live as vividly as it does.

This results in a film that is softer, more welcoming than other films that depict young, gay men coming-of-age. It seems impossible to compare Call Me by Your Name to yesteryear’s Best Picture, Moonlight, or even the more recent, Beach Rats; though they all may be simplistically reduced to the same genre. Elio does not encounter any opposition to his relationship with Oliver other than the values that he has internalized. Although same sex relationships were still largely forbidden in 1983, even those views seem muted as if the summer has allowed even reality to slip away with the flowing sunshine. Perhaps some will point to the lack of traditional, physical turmoil and see a drawback. However, it allows the movie to focus, instead, on deepening the relationship between Elio and Oliver, which it does with great success. Chalamet plays Elio’s yearning with a deep understanding, resulting in final scenes that are all the more devastating. His complex performance is complemented by Hammer’s perfectly.

In addition to the two young men at the center, Elio’s parents (Michael Stuhlbarg and Amira Casar) bring a much needed contrast of experience and weariness. Time has already changed them irreparably. However, this feeling of being passed by is not expressed as cynicism or bitterness, but in support and hope for their son. Even time is not treated as an enemy, something to be raced against or contested. Life happens as a steady march forward and we simply change along with it. Elio and Oliver’s affectionate switching of names, the source of the movie’s title, is an acknowledgement of each other even as they are becoming other people. Perhaps we cannot remain youthful forever, but that promise of transformation, with its beauty and pain, is never lost.

On Saturday night, thanks to UMS and M-Prize, the city of Ann Arbor had the privilege of drinking in one of the finest displays of musicianship in the world, ushered in by the quartet Russian Renaissance.

If you missed the performance, do yourself a favor and watch them here. Or, get excited about their first album, which is coming soon!