My Brother is an Only Child

Daniele Luchetti's breezy family melodrama plays out amidst the tumultuous political landscape of 1960s and 70s Italy, charting the coming-of-age of wiry, hot-headed seminary dropout Accio as he rebels against his left-leaning working-class family by falling in with the local blackshirts. His older brother Manrico (smouldering Italian heartthrob Riccardo Scamarcio), a charismatic, communist firebrand, is too busy tub-thumping at the local factory and getting his jollies with doe-eyed girlfriend Francesca to engage with his awkward, insecure sibling. Elio Germano gives a fantastically raw, twitchy performance as the impulsive, enormously likeable Accio who falls, inevitably, for the energetically liberal Francesca and drifts uneasily between political polarities, following his brother's earnest fanaticism from a wary distance. While Luchetti obviously isn't going for searing political commentary here, a little more incisiveness would have added some welcome authenticity. As is stands, for the uninformed there's little insight into a turbulent time in Italy's history, beyond a vague sense of being feebly poked with misspelled placards reading 'fashists – boo!' and 'comyoonists – yay!…no, actually, boo!' But sketchiness aside, the film's warmth of tone and easy wit, together with lots of gorgeously jaunty 60s Italian pop, make for an enjoyably light, charmingly playful pleasure. [Laura Smith]