FRIENDS: THE ONE SET IN ITALY
My Brilliant Friend depicts the tumultuous lives of two young girls in 1950s Naples. By KEVIN MA
AFTER TAKING A
stab at a big- budget European co- production with Paolo Sorrentino’s The Young Pope, HBO returns to Italy with My Brilliant Friend. Based on the first of the four Neapolitan Novels – which have sold more than 10 million copies – by the elusive Elena Ferrante (real name unknown), My Brilliant Friend is an ambitious drama that traces the lives of two girls growing up in a working- class neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples.
Our heroes, nicknamed Lila and Lenù, don’t share a straightforward friendship, nor is My Brilliant Friend a sunsoaked nostalgia trip to 1950s Italy. The adolescents’ relationship, which evolves slowly over the season’s eight episodes, runs deep, but it’s partly driven by Lenù’s admiration and jealousy of Lila, who is beautiful, intelligent and determined to learn, despite being forbidden by her father from going to school.
Made and released as nationalism sweeps across Europe, My Brilliant Friend reflects a different attitude: the girls dream big by looking outward. For them, education is a means to escape an existence plagued by violence, poverty and misogyny. The season is almost entirely set within the insular world of the nameless neighbourhood (believed to be based on Naples’ Rione Luzzatti area), and director Saverio Costanzo pulls no punches when depicting the various forms of violence that spring from generation-spanning family feuds and toxic masculinity.
With over a dozen major characters and multiple subplots that go in and out of the narrative, the show can be a challenge to keep up with in the beginning. But Costanzo’s confident direction and the naturalistic performances (the casting team chose only actors from the Neapolitan region for authenticity) make this an addictive show. Fortunately for us, there are still three more seasons to come.