DominicCobb said:
It isn’t until the end when it’s revealed that the parents decided to just let it happen (and we don’t see this decision making process, only the end result).We know no such thing. In that final “speech”, Elio asks his father if his mother knows, and he says he doesn’t know if she knows or not. What is strongly suggested at the end is that they both knew about it and hadn’t even discussed it.
I think you’re right actually, my bad, but point more or less still stands, we don’t know what’s going on in the heads of the parents. You assume they are 100% on board and that that’s unrealistic, I’m just saying I bet their feelings are probably more complicated than that, but this isn’t their story and we don’t see their perspective.
I should add that I was totally fine with everything in the movie until near the end when Elio’s parents are happily putting him on the bus for that trip with Oliver. It was only then that I found myself saying “wait a minute… wha?”. And that speech… “am I talking out of turn?” really? Who’s the parent here?
They know that, sexual or not, Elio’s relationship with Oliver has grown into something powerful, and think that allowing him the chance for some closure via this trip will be good for him. You don’t have to think they’re great parents or whatever, that’s not really important, but I don’t think their reasoning is impossible to understand (especially for the father, who doesn’t want to get in the way of his son having an experience he was never given the chance to have).
As I’ve said, their purpose in this story isn’t to be the overbearing parents of most stories like this, as that part is played by Elio’s assumptions of them. Ultimately they serve as a support system for his heartbreak in the end (the idea being that love and loss is inevitable, and they want to allow it to play its course naturally without getting in the way at a critical juncture).
I am sorry if I gave the impression that everyone who liked the film is a perv… obviously that isn’t the case, as most people love the film. Only that there were lots of creepy looking people in the cinema when I went. I’d like to presume there was no such intent, but as more and more problematic behaviors in Hollywood are being exposed, I couldn’t help but wonder.
I like to think that most people in the world aren’t pedophiles, and that counts for Hollywood just as much as anything. Hollywood is throwing out its dirt right now, which obviously makes it seem dirty, but it isn’t anymore than any other industry (if anything it’s only proving that at its heart it isn’t, because it’s actually trying to do something about it). Just cause Kevin Spacey tried to diddle a 14 year old doesn’t mean we should be suspicious that everyone making movies is a perv.