Love’s Brother

image for Love’s Brother

Short takes

Parental guidance to 13 (Themes. Sex.)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Love’s Brother
  • a review of Love’s Brother completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 22 March 2004.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 8 While there is nothing scary or violent in this movie for parents to be concerned about, due to its content, children under 8 might need some parental guidance.
Children aged 8-12 Children 8 - 12 might still need some parental guidance to view this movie.
Children over the age of 12 Children over 12 should be okay to see this movie with or without parental guidance.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Love’s Brother
Classification: G
Consumer advice lines: None
Length: 103 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Angelo and Gino are two brothers who, having lost both their parents, migrate to Australia from Italy in the 1950s in the hope of building a better life. Angelo, the older brother, is shy but caring and not particularly good looking. His younger brother Gino is handsome, self confident and always bailing Angelo out of difficult situations. They share a strong bond and love for each other. Gino has no trouble meeting girls but Angelo has great difficulty and so enlists the help of Senora Carmelina who arranges marriages between local boys and young Italian girls back in Italy.

Having been rejected on several occasions, Angelo is wary of trying again but when he sees the photo of Rosetta, a beautiful young girl from Southern Italy, he decides he will try again. However Angelo decides to do something quite uncharacteristic and sends his brother Gino’s photo instead of his own. Rosetta likes the look of the young man in the photo but is naturally afraid of travelling so far to an unknown land and leaving behind her mother and brothers and sisters. Rosetta’s mother believes life will be better for her in Australia and persuades her that it is her destiny.

When she arrives in Australia she is dismayed to learn that ‘Angelo’ is really Gino but being a well mannered girl tries hard to hide her displeasure. She stays with the boys’ sponsor family until she decides what she will do. Gino is attracted by her beauty but because of his love for Angelo is determined that she should marry him. Gino remains adamant that he is in love with his girlfriend Connie and that he is going to marry her. However, events don’t always work out the way they’re planned.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is no violence in this movie.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

There is nothing really scary in this movie apart from the fact that Rosetta leaves her family to travel alone all the way to Australia.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

There is nothing really scary in this movie apart from the fact that Rosetta leaves her family to travel alone all the way to Australia.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

There is nothing really scary in this movie apart from the fact that Rosetta leaves her family to travel alone all the way to Australia.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

There is nothing really scary in this movie apart from the fact that Rosetta leaves her family to travel alone all the way to Australia.

Product placement

None of concern.

Sexual references

There are a few sexual references:

  • Connie tells Gino that she wants to wait (to have sex) until after she’s married.
  • Gino talks to Angelo the night before his wedding and asks him if he’s nervous about getting married. He asks him if “he’s ever done ‘it’ before”. Angelo replies, “what’s ‘it’?”
  • Gino’s cupboard is full of girlie magazines which he throws out of his bedroom window and are picked up by some old men out on the street who have a good look.

Nudity and sexual activity

Gino and Connie are kissing passionately in the car and afterwards Connie pulls her top on.

Use of substances

There is drinking and smoking in a hotel and at the wedding.

Coarse language

There is a little coarse language, including one use of ‘for Christ’s sake'.

In a nutshell

The take home message is to believe in yourself and to value your own qualities.

Values parents may wish to encourage include:

  • selflessness
  • loyalty
  • taking pride in your heritage
  • being loving and caring
  • courage
  • thoughtfulness