The Kids Are All Right

Two American teens go on a journey of self-discovery on a US Army base in Italy

- Judy Ewens

There are echoes of the Oscar-winning film Call Me by Your Name in the new show We Are Who We Are, available on BBC3 Online this week. Both are coming-of-age dramas set in Italy and made by the same director, Luca Guadagnino, who also created and co-wrote the series.

But while the film centred on a teenage Italian boy discovering his sexuality, We Are Who We Are focuses on two American adolescents – Fraser Wilson (Jack Dylan Grazer) and Caitlin Poythress (Jordan Kristine Seamón) – exploring their sexual identities while living on a US military base in Italy.

ANGST IN EXILE

The provocative, atmospheric and leisurely-paced eight-part series opens with Fraser arriving at the base near the sun-kissed seaside town of Chioggia with his two mums. His biological mother Sarah (Big Love’s Chloë Sevigny) is taking over as the base’s commander while her wife Maggie (Queen of the South’s Alice Braga) is an Army medic.

Truculent, agitated 14-year-old Fraser, who stands out with his bleached-blond hair and baggy leopard-print capri pants, is not happy about the move and he makes his feelings abundantly clear.

‘He really holds his mums accountable for ruining his entire life, for dragging him from his home in New York, where he felt comfortable, across the sea to Italy, where he has nothing,’ says 17-year-old Grazer. ‘But he discovers himself in a far broader sense than he ever could have when he was in New York, so in a way it is a blessing in disguise.’