My Brother Is an Only Child

The family as microcosm of a divided country: Two brothers come of age in late-’60s Italy, as political strife reaches their provincial Latina (a city laid out by Mussolini’s government). A bounding prologue shows younger Accio entering adolescence in a seminary, already a waiting vessel for any guiding ideology. At home, older brother Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio) has become a Communist organizer, with looks and ardor scoring him plenty of revolutionary ass. Grown up a couple years, Accio — looking to big bro with an ambivalent combination of envy and upstart competitive contempt — applies for his Fascist card. That sibling break is exacerbated by Accio’s unrequited lust for one of Manrico’s disposable girlfriends. Daniele Luchetti’s film is ambivalent about how piggishness takes the guise of “free love” among the left. Tumultuously shot “rawness” is the stylistic house rule, but it’s Elio Germano’s Accio who vitalizes the film, flickering from brash to bashful in a Swiss Army-knife performance that’s diverse and yet totally unified.