The Elena Ferrante adaptation continues with lush romance and sensitive feminist rage.
One unusual thing I love aboutMy Brilliant Friendis my complete inability to figure out how old anyone is.
Lila is every fiery adjective ever written about Italian women.
Credit: Eduardo Castaldo/HBO
They protect each other, and compete bitterly.
Girace brims with glamorous assurance, giving her rebel-with-a-cause polymath a snarly humor.
But series creator Saverio Costanzo, who directs most episodes, gets more visually audacious in his dramatization.
The premiere features a terrifying marital assault on Lila’s wedding night.
The couple return home for a big family meal, bride’s face beaten blue.
Costanzo films the dinner mostly from Lila’s perspective, so we watch everyone double-taking over her bruise.
Mother, father, brother, in-laws, siblings: Nobody says anything.
It’s a devastating portrait of the culture of silence.
There are so many moments like that inMy Brilliant Friend, well-appointed period-piece drapery shockwaving into Feminist Horror chills.
Credit Costanzo for filling the cast with memorable faces.
Anna Rita Vitolo imbues Lenu’s mother with a toughness barely masking hardscrabble sorrow.
Lila and Lenu seem to be learning about society just in time to watch it burn.
With any luck, they’ll light the match.A-
Related content:
