CINEMA: MY Brother is an Only Child

Think of a stereotypical Italian family and the image of a loud, large group of people arguing and gesticulating madly may well come to mind. Keep hold of that thought because it is just such a family that exists at the heart of this movie and make it such a joy to watch.

Growing up in a small Italian town in the 60s and 70s Accio (Elio Germano) turns out to be the black sheep, but also the saviour, of his family. Constantly at odds with his mother and father, and forever in the shade of his glamorous older brother Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio) and clever sister, Accio decides to be a fascist when all the rest of his family are communists. When Manrico falls in love with the beautiful Francesca (Diane Fleri), Accio finds himself falling for her too, causing even more arguments between the two volatile brothers. As they grow, their lives may become separate, yet the ties of family love and sibling rivalry keep them fiercely loyal to each other, no matter what life throws at them.

There’s a breeziness and internal energy to this movie that makes it rattle along at an almost unseemly pace. The acting is astonishingly good with Germano playing Accio as a thug with a heart of gold and a native intelligence you just know is going to get him into trouble. In a way, this is almost an Italian version of East Is East with the same sense of rough and tumble and of a large, raucous family containing more diverse personalities than it can comfortably hold.

It’s funny and sweet and in one divine scene Beethoven’s Ode To Joy is turned into an anthem for the communists (‘Mao! Lenin! Stalin!’), only for the fascists to turn up and spoil the party – it’s something you’d never see in an American movie, but it’s brilliant.      Dee Pilgrim