The exhilaration that registers on Emma’s face as she finds herself falling head over heels for a young chef reverberates through every frame of Guadagnino’s new HBO series, “We Are Who We Are,” an eight-part opus that is guaranteed to stand as an essential work in the director’s oeuvre.
She does, however, confide in her mother, and this revelation sparks a newfound awareness in Emma of how her assigned role as a dutiful Italian wife runs in direct conflict with her primal passion. Just as Hanks’ character was shunned by former colleagues because of his homosexuality, Emma’s daughter is certain that the rest of her patriarchal family won’t be accepting of her burgeoning identity as a lesbian.
