Euphoria

With "Euphoria," director and co-writer Valeria Golina forges a refreshingly different and grounded family drama that includes – but is not defined by – a gay twist.

When his older brother Ettore (Valerio Mastandrea) is diagnosed with a terminal – though externally invisible – form of melanoma, the successful, hard-driven Matteo (Riccardo Scamarcio) allows his control freak side to take over the personal aspect of dealing with Ettore's illness and dealing with the extended family.

This means moving Ettore – who has recently separated from his wife – from their mother's home and into his own expansive flat in Rome. It also means shielding Ettore – and everyone else – from the truth by creating a fiction about a "cyst" that can easily be cured.

That, of course, is a lie that's bound to unravel in the fullness of time – and time is growing short. Is Matteo doing all this to spare his brother and other family members? Or is he simply creating a way for himself to live in denial for a while longer?

Living together means that the brothers' lives come into sharp contrast. As a teacher, Ettore makes little money; Matteo, by contrast, hatches high-flying deals with the Vatican and creates business opportunities out of what he foresees will be a booking business of providing for refugees. "I'm paid a hundred times more than you are," Matteo tells Ettore – his argument as to why Ettore shouldn't fret over what it costs to house and look after him.

Matteo has a point, especially given the large coterie of hangers-on he entertains. But he also uses his money as a source of raw power and leverage, tone deaf to the way his largesse is, in effect, humiliating his brother.

At the same time, Matteo is clearly enjoying the time he spends with Ettore – even when (as happens during a trip abroad) he needs to kick his brother out of a shared accommodation for half an hour or so in order to engage in a sexual hookup. The fact that Matteo is gay isn't a barrier or issue, but it does make for some good-natured fraternal fun as Ettore quizzes Matteo about his status as a top or a bottom, and Matteo teases Ettore with the evasive answer, "Which would you prefer?"

Not that Ettore is a sexual saint; his sundered marriage met its end when Ettore met a younger, more dynamic, and less "vacuous" woman than his wife of two decades. The only reason he didn't marry the younger woman is for the sake of his young son, Andrea (Francesco Borgese) – but even the kid's welfare isn't enough to get Ettore back home with his wife and child.

A film with no heroes or villains, but with a constant sense of fun, "Euphoria" brings to mind other LGBTQ family dramas, such as "Saturn in Opposition," that find fertile ground in commonplace challenges and familiar interpersonal dynamics – and uses the underlying, rather than overbearing, LGBTQ themes to freshen and charge them up.