HOW IS IT THAT a person (me) born and raised in America could respond so viscerally to My Brilliant Friend, an Italian drama series (which recently wrapped its final season on HBO and streaming on Max) about the tortuous, lifelong relationship between two women raised in a suburb of Naples? We are all motivated by similar impulses: love, jealousy, hunger, hatred, success, and most of all, survival.
Using Elena Ferrante’s quartet of Neapolitan novels as source material—and following them almost to the letter—creator Saverio Costanzo transforms an intensely personal saga into a universal story. The series follows the friendship between Elena “Lenú” Greco and Raphaella “Lila” Cerullo (both played by multiple actresses) from their childhood in the 1950s through their old age in the 2010s.
