My Brilliant Friend

Sky Atlantic/now TV

In case you haven’t heard of Elena Ferrante, she’s a global phenomenon. Best known for her four-volume Neapolitan novels, she also happens to write under a pseudonym, and no one knows who she really is. Now those books have been adapted for TV to become HBO’S first ever foreign-language drama series, which will eventually be a 32-episode, four-season epic. The first episodes of season one have just arrived on Sky Atlantic and I’ve never seen anything like it. The narrative is built round the friendship of two girls, Elena and Lila, growing up in working class post-war Naples, but the opening episode begins with an instantly captivating scene in which the elderly Elena gets a phone call from Lila’s son, informing her that his mother has gone missing. Elena reacts by telling him he has to learn to cope without his mother. Oh, and he should never call her again. What has happened in their relationship? Presumably, we’ll find out in the next 31 hours, or so. To begin with, the series flashes back to when the girls meet at school. Lila’s intelligence and unkempt hair mean she’s treated as a maverick outsider, but Elena is drawn to her. What ensues is a stunningly authentic depiction of childhood in extreme circumstances. This is a world where kids throw rocks at each other for fun, and a man gets beaten up by the locals for seemingly no good reason. The awesome realism of the series is matched by its tremendous boldness. Elena’s recurring nightmare visions of black creatures invading her home and, indeed, the whole town, are extraordinarily vivid. It’s early days, but this already feels like a bit of a classic.