My brilliant friend follows the friendship of two girls throughout their childhood and adolescence during the 1950s, in the setting of a suburb of Naples inhabited by a violently macho society. Great performances in a series that at times constitutes a reincarnation of Italian neorealism and that beats with an emotion and melancholy rarely seen and flows with a romantic breath. A whole period painting.

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.