My Brother Is an Only Child
Director: Daniele Luchetti
Year Released: 2007
Rating: 2.0
What are the chances of this: two brothers, growing up in the same (crumbling) household with the same (poor) parents, choose two different political paths - the younger brother gets kicked out of Seminary school for jerking off and turns Fascist while the older brother becomes a Communist rabble-rouser. The very beginning is fun and energetic - Vittorio Propizio, as skinny adolescent Accio, is hormonal rage in full-force - before turning in a rather undeveloped critique of Italian society and its flirtations with two equally flawed political systems. Might have been better served by playing it light, as the heaviness requires a kind of intellectual autopsy of a people that Luchetti isn't up for, and the concluding note - that taking political revolt too far leads to self-destruction - makes the ending more bitter than sweet.
