My Brother is an Only Child (Mio fratello è figlio unico)

The contrasting lives of Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio) and his younger brother, Accio (Elio Germano), provide the narrative fuel for Daniele Luchetti’s finely honed portrait of Italian society in the turbulent sixties and seventies. Luchetti sketches a beautifully modulated tale of rivalry, love and political differences.

The film begins in the early sixties, when the rebellious young Accio decides that seminary life is not for him. A leader of the local Fascist movement who is an admirer of Mussolini and stridently anti-American fills the boy’s head with talk of restoring Italy’s lost glories. However, Manrico sits on the other side of the political fence. He quickly gravitates toward the Communist party and begins organizing local factory workers. The two brothers manage to remain friends despite their divergent beliefs, but their relationship undergoes a different kind of challenge when Accio’s attraction to Manrico’s girlfriend, also a committed left-wing organizer, becomes apparent.

While politics may well be divisive, they are also transient and, as people grow older, different realities and feelings come into being. My Brother Is an Only Child captures the full spectrum of what this means to a family living through uncertain times.

Piers Handling, Toronto Film Festival Programme

*Screening with the short film, Blind Eye.