We Are Who We Are: Season 1 Episode 1 ‘Right Here Right Now’ Recap
Luca Guadagnino is back and this time, he is taking his enormous talents to television with his new HBO Series, “We Are Who We Are”. The Series premieres on HBO on Monday and captures a heavy look at the teenage experience and the path to self-discovery. The series is not just specific to the teenager’s life on base, it also focuses on the themes and questions around identity, not just within the teenagers, but within every character on screen, challenging the viewers to create their own opinions about the dynamics between themselves and how we portray ourselves to the world.
Jack Dylan Grazer plays Fraser alongside Jordan Kristine Seamón as Caitlin in Luca Guadagnino HBO Series “We Are Who We Are”
The series follows Fraser (Jack Dylan Grazer) the teenage son of a newly promoted Colonel, Sarah (Chloë Sevigny) on an Army base. In the opening scenes we follow the family through the Italian airport where they just re-located to from New York City. In the first glimpses, we study Fraser, a fluid teenager stuck at the Lost and Found with his parents, genuinely un-interested in the life course that is set out for him. Grazer’s quiet performance as Fraser grabs your attention immediately, zeroing in on his black and gold fingernails and bleached hair, we are invited into his new life and the first episode is largely framed from his perspective.
Fraser is the son of Sarah, who moves her family from the United States to accept the high promotion of a Colonel at the Italian Base in the year 2016. As we follow the family from the airport to their new home, we can sense a sort of dysfunction operating between Fraser, his mother, Sarah and Sarah’s wife, Maggie (Alice Braga). Fraser is distant and isolated, seemingly content to operate around the edges of people’s lives, not taking too much attention but we see that his twitchy behavior hints at a troubled past.
As they begin unpacking boxes to settle into their new home, Sarah slices her finger open on the edge of a packing knife, Fraser jumps to his mother’s aid, clamping his mouth over the cut to stop the bleeding. At another point in the series, we see Fraser strike his mother’s face out of anger. The animosity between the two of them is largely coming from Fraser’s opinion of Sarah’s job in the military and how he believes she uses her promotion to distance herself from him and their family.
Fraser spends the day wondering through the base, through the solider quarters, into the school, down the hallways when he is attention focuses on a student in one of the classes. He stops and takes multiple photos of her, something catching his eye that he wants to remember, to look back on. Caught up in the group setting, he tags along with them to the beach, keeping his eyes on the girl from his photo, Caitilin Poythress (Jordan Kristine Seamón), another teenager on the base, whose father is under the new command of Fraser’s mother, Sarah.
Chloë Sevigny plays Fraser mother, Sarah, a newly appointed Colonel on their Italian Military Base
Fraser’s actions are aimless, we see him wander away from crowds, separating and isolating himself. We can feel the destructive behavior that Fraser seeks to emulate as he walks along the side of the bridge, balancing on the railing before falling back on the pavement, cutting his cheek. Maggie ends up picking up Fraser and we can sense a gentler relationship between the two characters. The anger he feels towards Sarah and her position in the military is a focal point in the first episode and we feel the tension boiling under the surface.
The construction of the military is rigid and strict in its definitions and classifications of its people, there is no room for added expression or extended boundaries and we can see that Sarah is trying to fit within these socially constructed molds. In the Colonel Appointment ceremony, we can feel the resentment from the other commanders, their attitude on transferring command to a woman and the critique of her nature that doesn’t fit within the construction of the base. The series isn’t just focusing on the identity of teenagers, though most of the first episode is told from Fraser’s perspective, it’s focusing on the human identity and how all their characters within the series are trying to discover themselves.
“So, what should I call you?”
In the final scene of the series, Fraser spots Caitiln from her house, just a few spots away from Fraser’s family. He watches as she leaves behind her chastising mom and bikes away from the base. Fraser eagerly follows her, recognizing that she is dressed differently from his previous interactions with her. Caitiln has her hair tied tight and tucked underneath a baseball cap, pulled over her eyes. She is wearing her father’s old button-down shirt and enters a bar off of the base. Fraser keeps his distance, but follows behind, Caitiln is unaware of his presence. Watching from the outside, he sees her flirting with another teenage girl, exchanging phone numbers as Fraser realizes that Caitlin is channeling a male gender persona. Before she leaves, they catch each other’s eyes before Caitlin walks away.
The first episode wraps with Fraser and Caitlin sitting together on a beach while their friends interact nearby. Fraser turns to Caitiln and asks “so, what should I call you?”
Beautifully shot and as always, Luca fully grasps and portrays the tiny, minute details of the human experience, bringing the most selective notes to screen. The series is a poetic viewpoint of identity and the fluidness of human beings at any stage of their lives, while also asking the questions to identify who they are in the midst of the world. They Are Who They Are. We Are Who We Are.