Little Brother

“I know I’m older than you but I’ve always felt, like, dumber or less capable. It’s like I’m the little brother,” says Pete (Philip Ettinger).

Jake (Daniel Diemer) is waiting outside in the car when Pete emerges from the hospital. He’s clearly relieved to see the warm smile on his brother’s face. There’s a lightness about Pete that one would not expect in someone who has recently tried to kill himself. Still wearing his medical bracelet, he takes Jake back to their deceased grandmother’s house, where he’s been staying, talking cheerfully about matters of no consequence. When he can slip away, Jake speaks on the phone with their father (JK Simmons), who wants to sell the house and, more to the point, get Pete back home where he can keep an eye on him.

He doesn’t mean it to be a betrayal. Of course Pete, when he figures it out, takes it that way. Nevertheless, the two set out together on a long car journey across the ‘States, and it’s in the process of this that we really get to know them – as they get to know each other. Their age gap being what it is, there’s a lot that Jake isn’t really aware of. His experience, growing up with a sober father, was quite different. During phone conversations, we see that the old man is drinking again. is this what messed up his older son in the first place? is it a reaction to the fear of losing him and, as time goes on, the fear that his younger son’s life will also be ruined as a result? Writer/director Sheridan O’Donnell explores the ways in which rigid ideas around masculinity have contributed to the family’s tragic situation. The father is simply not equipped to save Pete, yet feels that it’s his duty to do so, and is unable to cope with this conflict.

Though probably the best adjust of the three, Jake apologises, at one point, for expressing sorrow in his childhood, suggesting that he too has been harmed by the setting of unrealistic standards. Despite his fragility, Pete is the most aware of the trap and best placed to break out of it, but his manic depressive behaviour sees him alternate between providing inspiration and quietly slipping away to harm himself. If this keeps happening, Jake knows, there will come a time when he won’t be able to intercede fast enough. What does Pete need to keep him from reaching this point? Gradually – with a bit of help from people they meet along the way – he moves past frustration and the search for a logical solution to a point where he is ready to look at the world from Pete’s perspective. Recovering the closeness they briefly enjoyed as children, the brothers might both find something worth living for.

It’s a simple story brought to life by capable, sensitive performances, and despite the heavy subject matter it finds room for a good deal of joy. Unmoored from his resentments, Pete is at ease in the world, ready to engage with life and broaden his little brother’s horizons. The blurred fragments of kids’ cartoons that we see over the opening credits, harking back to a traumatic day in both their lives’, also hint at a different, more impressionistic way of connecting with the world. There is a tension here between the affectations of civilised life and simple, animal ways of being. Holding it all together is the bond of brotherhood.