The Call Me By Your Name director’s debut TV outing is beautifully shot and languorously paced, but it might need an energy boost if we are to stick with its angsty protagonist
Only one of the eight episodes of We Are Who We Are (BBC Three), award-winning film director Luca Guadagnino’s first television outing, was available for preview. This seems a mistake, given that the coming-of-age story of a group of teenagers on an American airbase in Italy is so clearly a slow burner. It has been described by those in the US as exquisite, lyrical, poetic and in many other terms that loosely translate as “admirable, a talent showcase and yet ever so slightly boring at first sight”. Allowing for that handicap, then, let us sally forth and, like protagonist Fraser – roaming round the new home his US colonel mother, Sarah (Chloë Sevigny), and her wife, Maggie (a mere major, played by Alice Braga), have brought him to – see what there is for us.
At 14, Fraser (brilliantly played by Jack Dylan Grazer) is an unlovely piece of work. Face (complete with bumfluff moustache) set in a permanent sneer, headphones plugged as permanently into his ears, he is a self-indulgent mass of hormones and attitude. He is full of contempt for humanity and resentment of Sarah, who has brought the family to the Venuto military base so that she can take over from the outgoing commander. During one extended sequence of Frazer’s explorations of his new territory, my notes record that “he’s even annoying riding a bike”.
