We Are Who We Are

An intense, exhilarating queer melodrama that evolves, recombines and finally crystallizes its director and cowriter’s pleasure principle into one of the year’s best TV series.

With half the episodes yet to be seen, “We Are Who We Are” could go in a lot of different directions, but it already feels bursting with life in the way great television often does. You want to live alongside these characters for as long as they’ll let you, and for as shrewdly as Guadagnino doles out key details, there’s nothing fast about this loving look at developing souls. Whether you want to read poetry or swim under the Italian sun, “We Are Who We Are” gives you everything you could hope for. Kick back and enjoy.

Could you dismiss We Are Who We Are as weird, arty nonsense? Sure. Is it the kind of show that's going to give you everything up front or let plotlines simmer under the surface? Definitely the latter. Will you walk away from episodes with more questions than you came with? Probably. But that's all part of what makes it hella tight, in the words of an aforementioned teen icon. So let yourself obsess over We Are Who We Are, because it's the kind of show your teen self would've felt seen by, and you should honor that kid every chance you get.

An eight-part opus that is guaranteed to stand as an essential work in the director’s oeuvre.

This story is contemporary, lively, and breathtakingly human, dwelling in the awkwardness of teenage exploration and sensation with an honesty that is at times painful. It is Guadagnino’s talent to make this sprawling, uncomfortable period of life into something that reads, onscreen, as poignant and beautiful.

Despite some flat characters, Guadagnino exuberantly spotlights his cast of up-and-comers, especially Corey Knight as a sweetheart soldier with star-spangled boxer briefs. ... Has there ever been a military base this radiant with hedonistic pansexual yearning? I don’t believe it, but these kids are alright.

Grazer and Seamón are lovely to watch as their characters enter what seems to be a platonic relationship premised on their gentle recognition of each other’s nascent queerness. ... The writing of this relationship is spare but confident; by contrast, the secondary story lines are sometimes attenuated. ... It’s a transportive panorama of sexual exploration, frank but not caustic, voyeuristic but not leering, innocent and provocative.

Guadagnino’s gift here is more for atmosphere and emotion, and the episodes burst with them. They’re rich with sun and salt and a touch of melancholy.

Some viewers might get impatient with that meandering, leisurely approach, while other may find themselves swept up in the moment, transported by the series’ sense of place and mood. ... It’s not a traditional television show. It’s poetry. It’s a photograph of a moment in time. Every episode is an invitation to just sit within those verses and pictures and appreciate them, without judgment.

The series is at its most emotionally resonant while tracking that oxymoronic intersection of lazy spontaneity in which teenagers live. So it’s both interesting and disappointing that “We Are Who We Are” doesn’t seem to quite know who its adults are. ... As the series continues, it will be telling to see how the scripts handle the ongoing stories, which are largely (purposefully) nebulous. But in the early going, “We Are Who We Are” is an emotive portrait of makeshift community, bravado and life.

An aura of pleasant aimlessness suffuses the production, its evocation of eternal summer mirroring the teens’ approach to their here-but-not-really-ness. But of course the scripts (by Guadagnino, Paolo Giordano and Francesca Manieri) are meticulously crafted, guided in large part by the steady unearthing of the characters’ layers.

Grazer, who played Eddie the young hypochondriac in It, hits every complicated note about Fraser, who at times can seem incredibly wise and at others a scarred, volatile kid trying and failing to seem much more worldly than he actually is. Newcomer Seamón, meanwhile, is a real find: Caitlin has a different identity (and, at times, a different name) for every person in her life, but can be just as raw and vulnerable as Fraser, if not more.

If there’s one thing Guadagnino knows how to do, it’s capture the feeling of characters in limbo, whether by age or circumstance; if spending eight hours in that kind of gorgeously fitful purgatory appeals to you, there’s a lot to appreciate in We Are Who We Are.

The kids sometimes seem wise and mature and accepting beyond their years only to fly off the handle and engage in that distinctly teenage brand of solipsism, where the people around you don’t matter nearly as much as you and your own feelings. They’re able to be pretentious and profound on entirely their own terms, rather than seeming like mouthpieces for middle-aged screenwriters.

We Are Who We Are’s scope is almost too expansive, but Guadagnino’s gentle direction and subdued script help the audience build a connection to the characters.

Guadagnino concentrates so much on the teenagers that the adults might get the short end of the character stick. ... The first episode of We Are Who We Are takes its time to get to where it wants to go, but the ride is pleasant because we’re so intrigued by Fraser and his various relationships.

Intimate and provocative new drama. ... Like Euphoria, it wants to be shocking but soon grows monotonous. [14 - 27 Sep 2020, p.10]

The show barely develops its adult characters. One hopes that will come in future episodes but in the meantime the vibe coming off the kids who want to be more worldly than they actually are proves alternately alluring, dispiriting and fascinating, which makes “We Are Who We Are” a tough show to embrace — and impossible to entirely dismiss.

I watched the four episodes provided to critics waiting with hot anticipation for the “thing” to click into place, the thing that bottles all of these vibes, diversions, and spontaneous forays into ensemble characters’ lives that circles and swirls so vibrantly—yet so chaotically—in this series, as if waiting to be harnessed. But it never happens. Whatever elixir you’re expecting Guadagnino to eventually package, at least in these first four hours, remains just spilled out over the screen, puddling as it will.

A sensual, immersive but weirdly inert HBO drama