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75 out of 96 people found the following review useful:
Enough already...., 20 April 2007
4/10
Author: pierlorenzodangelo from Italy

The first 30 minutes or so made me hope for the best. Elio Germano is an actor with an extraordinary power to grab his audience and make us care, plus, the film seemed to move away from the (very good) book it is based on and go for the most engaging comedic aspects of the story. I knew it was too good to be true. Shortly after the film falls in a series of common places robbing us from the possibility to be surprised, engaged or even care. I wonder why it is that we - in Italy I mean - feel the need to visit the past though the same identical paths. To tell you the truth, I'm sick and tired of it. Can we tell stories that live out of its own strength. Politics, intellectual reflections without any, real, base on reality. We are known for protesting at a bar table, maybe go to a demonstration but at the end of the day we are going to do what we're told. Honestly or dishonestly. Could it be that, this relentless film revisions, is a tacit way to justify the fact that we've been so ineffectual in real life. We've been through everything and more but nothing has really changed. We're better identified by the Alberto Sordi characters like the one in "La Grande Guerra" by the great Mario Monicelli. My question is: If I, as an Italian, couldn't care less about the political mismatch of two Italian brothers, imagine the rest of the world. How confusing and ultimately annoying way to tell a story. There was a sort of uproar today, knowing that this film had not been selected for the official selection at the Cannes Film Fest. Hey, come on, think again. Why should it be? There is absolutely nothing new in it. Nothing! Riccardo Scamarcio continues to sleep walk through his film roles. He is beautiful but not nearly as magnetic as Elio Germano. I hope we'll wake up soon and realize that we won't change the past by revisiting it. That we are who we are and should look ahead to see what happens.

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69 out of 93 people found the following review useful:
Where Are The Ideas?, 21 April 2007
3/10
Author: primodanielelori from Rome, Italy

I rushed to see this movie, with Elio Germano, perhaps the best Italian actor of his generation, and Riccardo Scamarcio, the heartthrob of the moment. I got upset about the rejection from the snobbish Cannes Festival and I wanted to see the film by myself. Now, after having seen it, unfortunately, I have to agree with the Cannes decision. The film is a tired rehash of other books/films/TV done indifferently and boringly with two saving graces: Elio Germano's and Angela Finocchiaro's performances. The rest is, quite frankly, unendurable. The film felt long, long, long and I got more and more impatient and eventually angry with the whole thing. The Italian cinema that once was a power force of inspiring themes and ideas seems to have arrived to a total dead stop. The artists, I feel, with something new to say, like Libero Di Rienzo - have you seen his "Sangue" with Elio Germano as well? No, I bet you haven't. It was released in secrecy and for my money, his movie had something new to say in a totally new exciting way. I fear we, in Italy, can't move forward because we're trapped in some king of structure that it's terrified of new ideas. As a consequence we have films like this one. A throw back to the past and not in a nice way. Cannes? Are you nuts?

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5 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Finding Self: A Beautiful Coming of Age Story, 6 August 2008
9/10
Author: gradyharp from United States

MY BROTHER IS AN ONLY CHILD ('Mio fratello è figlio unico') is a title that may confuse the casual movie viewer, but it is an apt summation of the rigorous story that this excellent Italian film by Danielle Luchetti (adapted from a novel by Antonio Pennacchi) represents - the coming of age of two brothers in the confusing and turbulent 1960's and 1970's in Italy. While the film deals with the myriad political factions that disrupted life especially among the students of that era, the main focus of the story is the indomitable brotherly love that bonds the two main characters.

Accio Benano (Vittorrio Emanuele Popizo) as a child is a mischief maker who has entered seminary to become a priest, but his innate search for truth and meaning soon finds him returning home to his little family in a Mussolini-fabricated town called Latina, a village built on promises of communal well-being (a housing project was built but the poor villagers are refused access to it), but languishes in the poverty of lost hopes and deflated spirits. Accio's father, mother, younger sister and older brother Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio) are making ends meet, but are frustrated with the political oppression of the working class. Time passes and the older Accio (Elio Germano) comes under the influence of Mussolini's 'idealism' with the tutelage of his older friend Mario (Luca Zingaretti) and embraces Fascism while Manrico has aligned with the communists, and it is this dichotomy of belief that sets Accio apart from his brother as well as his family who are communist sympathizers. Accio's personality places him in harms way with the law, with women (he has longings for the women in both Mario's and Manrico's lives), and ultimately with turns of events that threaten to pit brother against brother. The resolution of these conflicts makes for a fascinating study of familial ties, brotherly love, and a keenly observed sociopolitical history of Italy that is as enlightening as it is entertaining.

While Germano and Scamarcio are the obvious stars of this well acted film, the supporting cast (including such fine actors as Angela Finocchiaro, Massimo Popolizio, Alba Rohrwacher, Anna Bonaiuto, and Diane Fleri) is uniformly strong. This epic film demands full attention to the script (Italian with English subtitles) to follow the various political differences, but the tenor of the film is one of the excitement and concomitant love of two brothers coming of age in the best Italian style! It is a joy to watch and a lesson in history about which we should all be aware. Grady Harp

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20 out of 39 people found the following review useful:
Nothing New Coming From Italy, 5 April 2008
3/10
Author: hollyfairbanks-usa from Los Angeles, CA

I used to love Italian films but lately they all seem to deal with the same issues in more or less the same ways. Trying to be politically relevant and forgetting what cinemas is all about. This tired tale of politics and family got me fidgeting on my seat after only a few minutes. I'm sure there were enough elements here for a satire of sorts or even better a heavy duty family drama but the film delivers neither. Elio Germano is a good actor and Riccardo Scamarcio has a good face but their characters are half cooked at best. The most climatic moment happens off camera and my frustration became audible in the theater. If I had known I would have stayed home to watch again an Elio Petri movie.

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More of the same from Italy's new film-makers, 17 September 2009
6/10
Author: palmiro from United States

There's this much to be said for this movie from the ranks of Italy's new young directors and actors: The quality of the acting was at least one notch above the usual fare, which almost never transcends the clichéd facial expressions and intonations we expect to find in TV dramas and sit-coms. This new generation of actors and directors was raised on US television imports ("telefilms") and Latin-American soaps, and it definitely shows in the uninspired and uninspiring quality of their work. And one gets the impression that 90% of them come from Parioli, a very well-to-do neighborhood of Rome, that would be the rough equivalent of coming from Santa Monica, Lake Forest IL, or Westport Conn—all those perfectly groomed faces coming from families of the Italian haute bourgeoisie with unlimited funds to advance their children's "acting career." If it weren't for Elio Germano as Accio (as well as Luca Zingaretti as Accio's fascist mentor and Anna Bonaiuto as his wife), this movie would probably fall into the same category of banalized film-making with all the rest.

But Germano's performance is not enough to salvage a film that fails to rise above a rating of "mediocrity +". Certainly it was an interesting idea to situate the action in Latina, a city built from scratch by Mussolini's fascist regime after it had drained the surrounding swamp land (the "bonifica" that was one of Fascism's highly touted achievements). All of the city's architecture was inspired by fascist "monumental" design.

Regrettably, Luchetti has done little of interest to exploit this setting for his family drama other than to bring up the same old cliché of opposing extremisms (the thuggery of the neo-fascist right vs. the banditry and targeted terrorism of the extra-parliamentary left). And the drama of the conflict between these two extremisms is used altogether too much to drive the plot forward. Some Italian commentators disliked this film because it seemed to go over the same old ground in the same old way—when it was time, presumably, to move on to new subjects. But the problem was not that it rehashed Italian history—the problem was the "hash." Bellocchio, after all, did a wonderful job of re-interpreting to Italians the experience of the Red Brigades in his "Buongiorno,Notte".

But here the audience is simply given a choice between fascist hooliganism and a lunatic left, when actually the situation in Italy in the 60s and 70s was much more complicated and nuanced. Millions of Italians belonged to parties and movements that were seriously committed to a progressive transformation of Italy that did not involve knee-cappings and assassinations. And so Luchetti ends up confirming (perhaps despite himself) the American/Berlusconiano vision of the world: "Forget about ideology—it's all about individual freedom and authenticity in your personal relationships." And finally we can see the effects of Berlusconi's TV stations and their ilk also in the movie's script. After 20, I stopped counting how many times the characters said, "Ma Che Cazzo Dici?"("What the f#%k are you saying?"). It is a measure of the moronization of the Italian public under the sway of Berlusconi and Berlusconian media that the scriptwriters think that they can get a laugh out of an Italian audience with this phrase each and every time it is said—and sadly they're probably right.

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A film of two halves, 11 March 2009
8/10
Author: imdb-5596 from United Kingdom

This film is a dilemma for me. The first half just bounced along. The music was perfect. The energy pulled me along with it, seeing what felt to me like real people's insight into the serious subject matter. Interesting subject matter, interesting characters with motivation, who I cared about. You do laugh at things, even when serious stuff is going on most of the time. I didn't think it could get any better.

And then in a blink of an eye (about an hour in, maybe), it all went to pieces. It dawdled slowly through clichés. I felt like I knew what was coming, and I didn't even care. It was implausible, and at times boring enough for me to lose concentration.

Part of the problem is that it is (as another reviewer noted) about 20 minutes too long. How come are there film directors - talented ones - who haven't yet noticed that 90 minutes is generally enough? 8/10 for the brilliant first half.

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6 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
A witty and charming family drama, 14 April 2008
7/10
Author: Antibody

The political backdrop of this 60s character drama is both nostalgic and frightening - that disaffected and rebellious Accio finds himself so easily taken in by a Fascist mentor strikes parallels with the our own young men turning to extremism or street violence in a search of identity. Accio clashes dramatically with his older brother, the hip, good-looking communist, but the story not so much about political ideals as their expression of familial jealousies and personal moral development.

The tensions and affections of this struggling working class family, portrayed by all with genuine emotion. The dialogue is witty and charming and not unlike other memorable Italian films (Il Postino, Cinema Paradiso) the characters come across almost too resoundingly. This gives the film a well-crafted theatrical quality, that is engaging, well-paced and very satisfying.

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28 out of 57 people found the following review useful:
What's all the fuss about?, 29 October 2007
Author: fluffyrona from United Kingdom

Saw this as part of the London Film Festival, and was expecting a belter. And how disappointed was I? VERY.

What could have been a very interesting look at how different political views can co-exist within the family instead descends into a series of disjointed rubbish with no real purpose and no explanation.

The central characters were introduced, but without much substance, and there were holes in the plot that you could have driven a double decker bus through. About 20 minutes too long, it actually had my husband snoring after an hour, that can't be good in the entertainment stakes, can it? With a denouement that comes out of nowhere, this left me feeling very disappointed and unsatisfied. All in all, a good idea, totally wasted.

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3 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Indoor Fireworks, 6 July 2008
10/10
Author: Seamus2829 from United States

If you had the rare chance to see 'The Best Of Youth' a few years ago, and was dazzled by it's very well written screenplay, here's another feather for your cap. 'My Brother Is An Only Child' re-unites the writers of that fine film for another tale of sibling rivalry. It tells the tale of two upper class Italian brothers, one just liberated from seminary school, where he was kicked out for bad behavior,and decides to become a neo fascist. The other, a dedicated communist. The volatile mix of passion (and hard headed)of the two brothers make for a panorama of social change in Italy of the mid to late 1960's. This is a beautifully filmed,smartly acted & crisply directed film that's well worth seeking out.

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3 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Growing up with bro is hard to do, 22 June 2008
8/10
Author: Philby-3 from Sydney, Australia

Good Italian movies are few and far between – the last I saw was Zefferelli's "Tea with Mussolini", and before that, "Life Is Beautiful". It seems that Italian movies, good or bad, are rare. If the list in Wikipedia is anything to go by, Italy produces about ten to fifteen features a year, far less than Australia.

This one is about growing up in a post-Mussolini, post-war world as a working class Italian. The narrator, Accio (Elio Germano), bright but temperamental, is not the most pleasant of people (his name means bully). At 13 he is sent off to a seminary by his long-suffering and pious parents but even though it's a fairly humane regime he doesn't last long. So it's back to the family's tiny, crumbling flat to grow up with his older brother, Manrico (Riccardo Scarmarcio). Rejecting religion, Accio comes into the orbit of the local fascists, though he is more interested in action than ideology. The handsome, charming Manrico becomes a communist, and beds Francesca (Diane Fleri), an attractive middle class girl who has joined the comrades. Naturally Accio gets interested in Francesca as well.

The story covers the period 1962 to 1968 and plenty of reference is made to the turmoil of the times, but basically it is about a textbook case of sibling rivalry. Acco and Manrico cannot keep their hands off each other – in order to fight, that is. Acco however does manage to reach some sort of maturity at the end.

The story moves along at a good pace and there are plenty of funny scenes. The best one is the occupation by the communist students during the 1968 disturbances of the Rome conservatory where they perform Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" with the words changed to communist slogans, and are then invaded by the fascists crying "Don't mess with Beethoven" (actually the original words were from a poem by Schiller). The switch of actors (Vittorio Propizio plays the younger Accio) is accomplished in a particularly neat fashion, using a method I last saw used in "Conan the Barbarian" where the older actor is substituted in mid-scene.

In the background is Mussolini's legacy, an angry, confused and humiliated nation without a clear sense of direction. His 1930's "new towns" like Latina on the Pontine marches, jerry-built and badly designed, were crumbling already by the 1960s. Replacement housing had been built but corrupt local officials were holding up its allocation. There is a very satisfying moment at the end of the film when Accio, no stranger to causing a ruckus, takes remedial action.

Not being Italian I probably missed a lot, but the film held my attention for its full length, despite Accio not being a particularly nice lad (then neither was Genghis Khan and he had an interesting life). The film is bright, fresh and fast-moving though I'm not sure about the climax, which is rather on the melodramatic side. If the Italians can bring themselves to make more movies of this quality, I'll come along to watch.

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