Few living directors have a filmography that can touch Bernardo Bertolucci’s: “The Conformist,” “Last Tango in Paris,” “The Last Emperor.” A back injury has sidelined him for years; Bertolucci directed this primarily one-set, two-character film from a wheelchair.
Lorenzo (Jacopo Olmo Antinori), a pimpled, asocial 14-year-old who skips a class ski trip to hide out for a week in the basement of his parents’ building. There he subsists on junk food and tends an ant farm, until along comes his 25-year-old half-sister Olivia (Tea Falco) — a beautiful junkie who’s about to go cold turkey.
It’s a tender film with great affection for these two souls; but it’s also slight and formulaic, with persistent off-key notes, like the youngsters’ 1970s-’80s taste in music. “Me and You” is more a tribute to youth and its discontents than a fresh exploration.