One moment, he is a sensitive type, slumped carelessly in a boat reading Ocean Vuong and sharing poetic principles (“We’re going to wear our souls as skin”) the next, he is throwing a tantrum or cutting down his mothers in explosive arguments. Fraser (Jack Dylan Grazer), the newest arrival to the base, is a bundle of contradictions. Despite its declarative title, We Are Who We Are presents its characters in flux, trying on and shrugging off different identities in search of their authentic selves.Ī decidedly Gen Z sensibility defines the series, which resists categorising its two leads, both of whom operate on a free-flowing, live and let live philosophy. The director takes the institution’s army-brat teenagers as his principal subjects, teasing out the fluctuating dynamics between them while also diving headlong into each of their personal journeys towards selfhood. The show languidly unfurls on an American military base in Italy, where a community of US soldiers reside with their families. Guadagnino lovingly details the ephemera of summer, from the rumpled T-shirts to the hastily shed flip-flops and frosted beer glasses. Watching it, you can practically feel the breeze on your face, the sand in your toes. The acclaimed film-maker Luca Guadagnino has so beautifully crystallised the season’s sultry pleasures in previous work (most notably Call Me by Your Name), and his eight-part series We Are Who We Are is a similarly sensuous mood piece that viscerally evokes summer in sweat, seawater and sunbeams. Summer is a time for adolescent experimentation: for new friendships and whirlwind romances and adventures that careen out of control.

We are who we are movie