Two men share a futon, a pile of takeout boxes and a heavy question: is love something you give up for God, or the way you finally meet Him. Brotherly Love walks softly through faith, guilt and queer desire, and lets a small summer in Austin turn into the hardest spiritual exam of one gay Catholic brother’s life.
Brotherly Love (2017) is one of those small, talky queer films that spends almost the entire runtime on one question: what if your love for God and your need for human love are not enemies, but two sides of the same restless heart? At the center is Brother Vito Fortunato, a young Italian-American religious brother in formation, trying very hard to live his vows of poverty, chastity and obedience while his body and emotions are clearly not on board with the program.
We first meet Vito in the least holy way possible: hungover, outside a sex shop, with his best friend Tim who drags him through gay nightlife like it is their second home. They joke about the church, about sex toys, about their own bad decisions, but underneath all that sarcasm you can feel how seriously Vito takes his vocation. He teaches religious education, attends Mass, lives in community with other brothers and genuinely wants to be “a good brother” – he just also happens to crawl into bed at four in the morning after a drag show.
Very quickly the film shows the tension. His superiors nudge him about going out too much and remind him of the usual line: “in the world, but not of the world”. Vito pushes back with textbook formation language, saying that healthy outside friendships are important and that isolation is dangerous. He is also checking, indirectly, if the problem is that his friends are gay and visible. The community officially accepts him as a gay brother, but once that queerness comes with bars, glitter and late nights, it becomes less comfortable.
Things change when Vito goes to see his spiritual director, Sister Peggy. She is one of those older Catholic women who have seen everything and still manage to be kind. Her advice is simple: God did not send you into the world so you can sit in a corner and suffer – go live a little. She suggests he spend the summer in Austin, in a residence for people living with HIV that is run by Brother Edmund. That is where the film really opens up.
The trip to Texas is a mini road movie with Vito’s cousin Eddie behind the wheel. They joke about airport security, body searches and Texas stereotypes. It is silly, sometimes a bit over the top, but it works because Vito suddenly looks like a guy who has stepped outside of his usual safe bubble and has no idea what to expect.
When he arrives at the house in Austin, we meet a whole new queer family: residents living with HIV, old TV writers in their drag queen era, quieter guys with decades of survival behind them. There is Alex, Lenny, Gregg, Mary Carson – a former TV writer who now glides around the house in wigs, perfume and perfectly timed one liners. They watch classic shows, quote old Hollywood divas and serve camp humor in between hospital visits and medication schedules. That mix of laughter and mortality gives the film its emotional weight.
In this world we meet Gabe – recently divorced, living in a small apartment with a futon that is both couch and bed, working retail and trying to rebuild a life that never really fit him. Unlike Vito, Gabe did the full heterosexual script: marriage, working in the family business, trying to be the son his parents expected. Then came the truth, the divorce, and the slow, uncomfortable process of coming out and losing his safety net.
Their connection starts very quietly. Gabe picks Vito up from the airport, they talk about music, laugh about Cat Stevens and Neil Diamond, and then end up in Gabe’s apartment, eating Chinese food and watching Yentl. From there, the relationship slides into deeper territory: late night conversations about love, marriage, vows, loneliness and what it actually means to share your life with someone.
These scenes are the heart of the film. Vito talks about his vows as a kind of sacred sacrifice – giving up romance and partnered sex so he can belong fully to God and his community. Gabe answers with something much simpler and much harder to dismiss: he cannot imagine a life where he is not allowed to be in love. Not just for sex, but for stupid everyday things – who sleeps next to you, who you cook for, who is there when you are sick and angry and boring.
The most intimate moments in Brotherly Love are not explicit. There are no big sex scenes. Instead, the film keeps circling around touch. Vito and Gabe share a futon. They talk about men in the 19th century who slept in the same bed without anyone reading sex into it. They negotiate whether they can cuddle “just to stay warm”. The camera stays with small gestures: a hand on a shoulder, a hug that lasts a little too long, a shared blanket, the way two bodies adjust to each other in a narrow bed.
For Vito, every touch is also a theological question. Is he breaking his vows just by wanting this? Is the desire itself the sin, or does it become a sin only when he acts on it? Gabe, on the other hand, is done with that kind of guilt. He knows what self-denial did to his marriage, and he is not interested in going back to a life where his heart is permanently locked in a closet to keep other people comfortable.
The film is smart enough to place their story inside a bigger queer history. The older residents, especially Winston and Randy, are not there only for color. They tell stories about meeting during the Anita Bryant crusades, about the atmosphere around Harvey Milk and the slow, painful political battles that made today’s small freedoms possible. Their presence is a reminder that the fact Vito can be an openly gay brother, volunteer in an AIDS house and still be in good standing with his community did not come for free.
Then there is Gloria and Blaze, the lesbian couple who lead an inclusive church. One of them used to be a nun, left, fell in love and somehow did not lose her faith in the process. For Vito, they are walking proof that love and vocation do not have to cancel each other. They ask him the one question his male superiors never really touch: have you ever felt that “life to the full” that the Gospel promises, or are you mostly surviving and calling it holiness because you are afraid to want more?
Visually, Brotherly Love is very much a low budget indie. Most of the film happens in apartments, the AIDS residence, kitchens, small yards, the occasional bar. There are no big visual fireworks. The camera is mostly still, the lighting is functional, and the money clearly went into giving actors time and space to talk instead of building elaborate sets.
Anthony J. Caruso makes Vito deeply watchable: sweet, funny, a little neurotic, clearly torn between what he believes God wants and what his own body and heart keep asking for. Derek Babb as Gabe brings a different kind of energy – tired, gentle, a bit lost but with a core of stubbornness that tells you this man has already paid a high price for honesty and will not go back into any closet, religious or otherwise.
The humor is pure queer comfort food: references to Golden Girls, old movies, Broadway, drag, sharp one liners from residents who have seen enough tragedy to earn the right to be rude and hilarious at the same time. If you enjoy that kind of “family by sarcasm” dynamic, you will feel at home. If you do not, some of the jokes may fly past you, but the emotional core is still clear.
If you want big confrontations with the Vatican, dramatic excommunications or people screaming in church, this is not that film. Brotherly Love is much smaller and more intimate. It is about one man who spends one summer realizing that vocation is not solved by signing a piece of paper or putting on a ring. It is something you keep negotiating with your own needs, fears and desires, especially when those desires include another man lying next to you on a cheap futon.
If you like queer stories that take faith seriously without turning God into a weapon, this is worth your time. There is plenty of camp and humor, but underneath all the jokes you can feel a real tenderness for people who are trying to belong – to God, to a community, to another person, and to their own body. The film is not perfect, but it has one big strength: it never forgets that behind words like “brother”, “gay”, “vocation” and “sin” there are human beings who simply want to be loved and to love back without having to cut themselves into pieces to make everyone else comfortable.
