My Brilliant Friend (2018)

Watchseries; It tries very hard to be arty and thought-provoking and utterly fails. It's mostly really boring in the super-long shots of scenery, etc. The narrator/author presents a portrait of Lila that is insipid, vapid, and narcissistic and in doing so, reveals herself to be all those things.

It tries very hard to be arty and thought-provoking and utterly fails. It's mostly really boring in the super-long shots of scenery, etc. The narrator/author presents a portrait of Lila that is insipid, vapid, and narcissistic and in doing so, reveals herself to be all those things.

My Brilliant Friend watchseries. Two girls lives seen through their eyes as they grow up from others misery - the parents - into a life of despair as it seems that misery and being unhappy is the lagacy in Italia not long after the ww2, where socialists fight fascists, where rich throne over the many poor, where school as the physycal work seems to lead nowhere because socially there s little to no mobility. Beyond this, its the free world we see as remembering.

This is a show made after a book, i think. If the book is as good as this serie really is, then nice job job.

Highlly recomanded serie. No doubt.

Personal opinion, I like Gaia Girace. Lila gives me shivers as a man.

One season in this is a magnificent production that paints an incredibly vivid portrait of the lives of two girls from their early childhood in post war Naples to their growth into young women. I find it deeply moving in parts. My own mother grew up as one of three children in a poor family in the north of England during this era and whilst local gangsters were less of an issue!, the abject poverty and complete lack of opportunity for working class people, particularly women, resonates completely. She was the brightest in her class but her only option on leaving school was the local slipper factory. Most people under 40 don't realise how bad it was back then. Very few films or tv series have showcased the importance of education as strikingly as this series does and it's a reminder that we all need at a time when governments across the world are pricing the current generations out of education once again. That this piece works so well is obviously partly due to the brilliant writing but it is brought to life by four stunning performances from the 4 young actresses who play Elena and Lila as children and young women. Margherita Mazzucco just about edges it - she can convey the equivalent of a paragraph of verse via a particular look and a couple of words, but all 4 are exceptional. Dora Romano is also fabulous as the teacher who is desperate to help the girls fulfil their potential and who reminded me of a great teacher that I had who saw some potential in a boy in her class. There isn't really a weak link in the wider cast either. You really get invested in all the characters and yearn for Elena and Lila in particular to escape to a place where they can flourish. The stunning cinematography is also worthy of high praise here. There is a scene where Elena rides a bus through Naples and you really believe you are there in the 1950's and the scenes in Ischia are breathtaking. Finally, it's all accompanied by a fabulous score from Max Richter. In short, this is one of the most promising tv series of recent years and I just hope that it keeps up this great high standard.

For someone who prefers movies to series, it takes a lot for me to start watching a TV series over several seasons. Sometimes I give a TV series a try. I started watching My brilliant friend, and now I'm hooked. I am very impressed with this engaging and gripping chronicle. First of all, the story is unique and very dramatic. The casing is perfect, and the script is believable and sometimes takes surprising turns. This makes the series extra exciting to follow. There is a lot to be impressed by here. The era and the environment in which this takes place appear as dark, threatening, but also a narrative as social ties that survive despite many obstacles. HBO, this is very good!

Seasons 1 & 2

Season 1

This Italian miniseries follows the friendship of Lenú and Lila, first as girls and then as teenagers / youth in a Naples suburb throughout the 1950s and early 1960s.

The series articulates this relationship with the family and social environment of both in a very natural and effective way. A deep relationship between two very different girls: Lenú is introverted, conciliatory and studious while Lila has a privileged intelligence, is defiant and unpredictable, at times exasperating, becoming a very particular kind of femme fatal at times. A friendship with closeness, distance and occasional rivalries.

They belong to families with women subjected to a violently patriarchal social framework with little interest in their intellectual and personal development, with family and clan, class and ideological rivalries and at some point subject to a Destiny typical of a very Mediterranean fatalism. And all taking place in that dusty neighborhood superbly photographed in sepia tone.

Especially at the beginning, the period reconstruction and performances clearly refer to post-war Italian neorealism. Note that the characters speak in the Neapolitan dialect.

Saverio Constanzo makes a magnificent, cinematographic direction, both in the intimate scenes and in the collective ones. The series is based on the first volume of the novel tetralogy Dos amigas, by the writer Elena Ferrante, whose text appears in the voice-over of an adult Lenú, from whose point of view the story is told.

In addition to the very good performance of the two girls and the cast (with those mothers who seem like a reincarnation of Anna Magnani and an extraordinary Dora Romano as teacher Oliviero), the magnificent performances of Margherita Mazzucco and Gaia Girace stand out, as Lenú and Lila adolescents and young, respectively, each immersed in her own particular melancholy . Each viewer will surely choose one of both characters as his favorite.

In addition to combining very well and with a romantic spirit all the dimensions of this narrative (psychological, social, historical), the series at many times knows how to beat with a deep and unprecedented emotionality, underlined by the great soundtrack by Max Richter, harmonically based on the theme La Follia, a favorite of many Baroque composers.

Without a doubt, one of the best series of 2018.

Season 2

English Review

Contains references to Season 1

Season 2 of My Brilliant Friend (based on A Bad Name, the second novel of Elena Ferrante's tetralogy) continues with the encounters and misunderstandings of the friends Lenu and Lila, the first with her patient and tenacious path of academic training and passion. and enterprising Lila immersed in the family trap of her marriage to Stefano, agent of a deceptive prosperity and that of the suburb in which she always lived. In both cases, omnipresent the patriarchal matrix that seeks to elegantly discourage the first and subdue the second with daily violence.

The love rivalry between the two erupts within the framework of the paradisiacal Ischia, in scenes of great beauty and suggestion (directed by Alice Rohrwacher and that makes us understand the bourgeois character of what we call adolescence, a territory to be conquered by women who pass from the childhood to adulthood nonstop). The Italian political scene of the 60s and the differences between northern and southern Italy are present and evident.

The series retains all i

The 2 main characters, are played excellently by the 4 young actresses chosen for these roles that are newcomers to keep your eyes on in the future. Very, dark, gritty background almost devoid of light color and air, which pulls you into their world of dreaming of a better life and their aspirations to find happiness, which seems quite elusive despite their wonderful intelligence and bravery. Two young girls growing up in a small poverty stricken town, filled with violence and suppression of women. Both challenge each other, to move to a brighter future, like watching a game of chess between them as the years drag on, all the time wondering when it's over, will they still be friends? Can't wait for season 3.:D One of the best show from HBO since Carnivale. ;D.