Elena Ferrante’s ‘My Brilliant Friend’ leaps from the page to the screen

‘My Brilliant Friend’ captures female friendship in all its fragile, fierce beauty.

Elena (Elisa del Genio) and Lila (Ludovica Nasti) in ‘My Brilliant Friend’. Source: © Eduardo Castaldo, Wildside

One of the most popular and beloved book series of our time, Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend introduced the inimitable Lila and Elena. They and their friendship resonated with women well beyond their national borders (over 15 million books have been sold in 45 languages).

Female friendship is not often depicted honestly or well – it’s either all bubble-gum and fun or manipulative savagery. The depiction of women’s friendship in a way that is as captivating as a  romantic relationship is a rare achievement, and thankfully, My Brilliant Friend has been translated wonderfully to screen, appealing to those who loved the books and those who intended to read them but never did.

Lila (Ludovica Nasti) and Elena (Elisa del Genio) in ‘My Brilliant Friend’. Source: Wildside

Capturing women’s friendships – loving, manipulative, possessive, supportive and layered with all our individual agendas and perceptions – in something as limited as language is akin to scooping the ocean into a teacup.

The mysterious Elena Ferrante (a pseudonym) succeeded, concentrating the paradoxes of female friendships into words in her internationally renowned Neapolitan novels. My Brilliant Friend, published in 2012, was the first of her novels to be translated to a television series – now in its third season – following a couple of movie adaptations, Troubling Love in 1995 and The Days of Abandonment in 2005.

For those who were captivated by Elena and Lila, childhood friends raised in Naples during the post-War 1950s, the prospect of actors portraying the characters who Ferrante had generously allowed us to imagine was a fearsome one. Over eight episodes of season 1, My Brilliant Friend demands your full attention and, if provided, it will duly reward you.

Margherita Mazzucco as the older Elena. Source: Wildside

Elena and Lila’s story begins in childhood, where their bond is forged more due to circumstances and a fear of the violence around them than sisterliness. Men and women bicker and battle over the impossible costs of daily living, infidelities and gambling. Children, mirroring their parents and neighbours, throw rocks and sticks, tormenting one another for entertainment.

Elena, nicknamed Lenu, is burdened with jealousy of her friend. Lila, by seven, has taught herself to read and write. She is clever, bookish and competitive. It is a combustible friendship, one built equally on the necessity to fend off shared enemies and the desire to find a kindred spirit in this violent world.

As their circumstances force them to confront the real world, one that is vastly unequal in terms of opportunities, security and dignity for each of them, their friendship morphs into a frayed, fragile web they are unable to escape or to mend.

Gaia Girace as the older Lila. Source: Wildside

Creator and director Saverio Costanzo infuses the series with the sounds, smells, sights and scenarios so tenderly described in the book. There is none of the sanctimonious sympathy for the city and citizens living in poverty that might alienate viewers from the Naples that Lila and Elena know as home. The crowded homes, cramped and musty, filled with generations of extended families, are all the children know.

Elisa del Genio and Ludovica Nasti portray Elena and Lila as children, and they are bewitching in their intensity and obsessive attachment to one another. As teenagers, Margherita Mazzucco and Gaia Girace find that awkward, proud urgency in every living moment while still being distracted by their own dreams of a womanhood far removed from the reality of their mothers and classmates.

Here in My Brilliant Friend are the Elena and Lila we may know from the books, or that viewers will meet for the first time through this series. Watch it without distraction, con tutto il cuor, with your full heart.

Seasons 1–3 of My Brilliant Friend are now streaming at SBS On Demand.

Stream free On Demand

My Brilliant Friend

series • 

drama • 

Italian

MA15+

series • 

drama • 

Italian

MA15+