And their polite, glancing treatment of same-sex sex actually feels like a retreat from the sexual frankness of earlier trailblazers like Brokeback Mountain, Shortbus, and Blue Is the Warmest Color. Yet while the critical success of these films may auger a readier embrace of movies about same-sex relationships in general, the actual narratives of Moonlight and Call Me by Your Name in particular reveal a stubborn resistance-even among pedigreed and “challenging” indies-to depicting same-sex romances defined by romance rather than repression, obsession, and torment.
