We Are Who We Are

We Are Who We Are is a 2020 coming-of-age drama television miniseries co-created and directed by Luca Guadagnino for HBO and Sky Atlantic. A coming-of-age story set on a fictional U.S. military base in Chioggia, Italy in 2016, the series follows two American teenagers, Fraser Wilson and Caitlin "Harper" Poythress. The cast includes Chloë Sevigny, Jack Dylan Grazer, Alice Braga, Jordan Kristine Seamón, Spence Moore II, and Scott Mescudi.
The series premiered to critical acclaim on September 14, 2020, on HBO in the United States and on October 9, 2020, on Sky Atlantic in Italy.
We Are Who We Are focuses on two American teenagers who live on a fictional U.S. military base in Chioggia, Italy in 2016. The series explores friendship, first love and identity, and immerses the audience in all the messy exhilaration and anguish of being a teenager.
In February 2019, it was announced that Luca Guadagnino was in talks with HBO to work on a new one-hour, eight-episode show tentatively titled We Are Who We Are. Guadagnino would direct the series and write the script with Paolo Giordano and Francesca Manieri. Lorenzo Mieli and Riccardo Neri were named as prospective executive producers.
The US Department of Defense was initially supportive, and the show was to be filmed at the US army complex at Vicenza, which would also provide the extras. Guadagnino later commented that they must not have read the script; the Department of Defense later withdrew all offers of support and, according to Guadagnino, would have preferred the show not to happen. Ultimately HBO had a set built nearby to represent the base.
The set was recreated in an ex Italian Air Force base that served as the logistics area of a Nike Hercules missiles site in Bagnoli di Sopra (PD), the "Gruppo I.T.".
The first reports described the main characters, Fraser Wilson and Caitlin Harper, as "a detached teenager who hails from New York City" and "a character [that] is hard to describe—beautiful, sometimes disapproving, poetic," respectively.
On July 17, 2019, the cast was revealed by HBO and it includes Chloë Sevigny, Scott Mescudi, Alice Braga, Jack Dylan Grazer, Spence Moore II, and newcomers Jordan Kristine Seamón, Faith Alabi, Corey Knight, Tom Mercier, Francesca Scorsese, Ben Taylor and Sebastiano Pigazzi.
Principal photography on the series was expected to begin in Italy in late May 2019, with production set to run through October, but production began in late July.
The series premiered in its entirety at the 68th San Sebastián International Film Festival on September 20, 2020.
The series premiered on television on September 14, 2020, on HBO in the United States and on October 9, 2020, on Sky Atlantic in Italy. The finale aired in Italy on October 30, 2020, ahead of its broadcast on HBO. In the United Kingdom, the limited series was released in its entirety on November 22, 2020, by BBC Three via iPlayer.
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 90% based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "We Are Who We Are doesn't move mountains, but by focusing on the little details and allowing its central teens to just be, Luca Guadagnino creates small-screen poetry." Metacritic gave the series a weighted average score of 77 out of 100 based on 22 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Alexandra Pollard of The Independent gave the series five stars out of five and stated, "Nothing is black and white in Luca Guadagnino’s potent, poetic coming-of-age series We Are Who We Are. Gender identity, sexuality, politics, morality – all are in constant flux, shifting like the tides of the coastal Italian town where this group of teenagers are living, on a US army base, in the run-up to Donald Trump’s presidential election win." Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly gave the series a B+ and said, "We Are Who We Are is mostly vibes, but what vibes!" Writing for Rolling Stone, Alan Sepinwall gave a rating of 4/5 and wrote "Few transplants from the big screen to the small have as keen an eye, or ear, as Guadagnino, so the voyeuristic nature of the storytelling feels inviting rather than indulgent. (Mostly)." Caroline Framke of Variety described the series as "so visceral as to become unsettling—but what else is being a teenager like, if not immersive, visceral and unsettling?". Matt Roush of TVInsider and TV Guide stated, "With the art-house sensitivity and sensuality he demonstrated in Call Me by Your Name, Guadagnino creates a mood of sexual tension — not of the "Will they or won't they?" variety as much as "Who are they?" — as they deal with issues of gender norms and expectations."