The cruelty and oppressiveness of this space is palpable. As she sits down to write the story of their lives, the older Lenù provides an intermittent voiceover, offering some essential insights into her perspective on past events.ĭirector Saverio Costanzo vividly captures the heated, frequently violent eruptions that define the impoverished neighbourhood where the girls come of age. It starts as the novel does, with a distressed phone call to sixty-year-old Lenù from Lila’s son, with the news that his mother has been missing for two weeks. I’m happy to report that My Brilliant Friend is both faithful to Ferrante’s novel – she is one of four screenwriters – and its own special entity. When an acclaimed and adored work of fiction is adapted into a film or television series, it’s often greeted with equal parts anticipation and anxiety.

Each girl faces the hypocrisies, indignities, and injustices of class and gender in postwar Naples as we follow them as teenagers and young women across eight engrossing episodes. These girls and their intense bond form the series’ core – Elena ‘Lenù’ Greco, who will grow up to be a writer, and her brilliant friend, Lila Cerullo, whose life will take a series of bleaker turns. This image of female solidarity and defiance endures all the way through HBO’s adaptation of the first of Elena Ferrante’s beloved Neapolitan novels, My Brilliant Friend. Two young girls stand before the door of the town loan shark, fiercely clasping hands.

My brilliant friend series books