Timothee Chalamet Stars In This Controversial Oscar-Winning Movie Coming To Netflix

Timothee Chalamet's Call Me By Your Name is coming to Netflix on February 1st.

By TeeJay Small | Published

Call Me By Your Name

Timothee Chalamet has rapidly become one of the biggest names in Hollywood over the course of the last several years, with a bundle of Academy Awards to show for it, as well as a recent news story which details the Hollywood A-lister has not had to audition for a role in over 7 years. Before Denis Villeneuve’s Dune took Chalamet to the forefront of huge budget Hollywood action, the young star was mostly known for contemplative art films such as Call Me By Your Name. After premiering in 2017 to critical acclaim, the controversial LGBTQ film will soon be available to stream on Netflix, according to a write up in What’s On Netflix.

The film is set to arrive on Netflix on February 1st, alongside a batch of critically acclaimed films such as Eat Pray Love, La La Land, and Flushed Away. The film features a 21 year old Timothee Chalamet in a leading performance alongside Armie Hammer, portraying a homosexual relationship in a raw and unflinching manner, leaving audiences stunned by the film’s emotional resonance. Call Me By Your Name quickly became a cult classic amongst the LGBTQ community, even inspiring Lil Nas X‘s hit song of the same name in 2021.

Call Me By Your Name takes place in rural Northern Italy in 1983, and functions as a loose adaptation of a 2007 novel of the same title. Timothee Chalamet stars as 17 year old Elio Perlman, a shy and introverted aspiring musician who strikes up a romance with his father’s graduate student Oliver, who spends the summer living with the Perlman family while pursuing his degree. Throughout the film, the pair tangle with their budding romance and sexual feelings for one another, ultimately resulting in a summer fling that ends when Oliver returns to his life in the United States.

Timothee Chalamet
Timothee Chalamet in Call Me By Your Name

Though the film saw massive critical and audience acclaim, many people took issue with Call Me By Your Name‘s portrayal of a relationship with an age gap. Timothee Chalamet, who was 21 years old at the time of filming, portrays a 17 year old who engages in a sexual relationship with Armie Hammer’s 24 year old Oliver. Armie Hammer was 31 at the time of filming, making the actors’ real age gap larger than that of the characters in the film.

While the gap may not have stuck out to many Northern Italian residents in 1983, the depiction was a jarring reminder of age of consent laws to much of the films American audience, where adulthood is often marked at age 18. A spirited debate has been ongoing within the LGBTQ community regarding the age gap depicted in the film as well as Timothee Chalamet’s performance, which some viewers saw as infantilizing, making the character unfit for a sexual relationship with a grown man. Ultimately, the controversy didn’t overshadow the film, which went on to win over a dozen Academy Awards.

If you’re a fan of Timothee Chalamet, you can check out the acclaimed film on Netflix February 1st and reach your own conclusions about the controversy. Chalamet shows no sign of slowing his incredible career trajectory at this time, with two films currently in production set to arrive later this year. Chalamet will be portraying a young Willy Wonka in the upcoming Wonka film, as well as reprising his role as Paul Atreides in Dune: Part Two.