![]() Lila’s striking looks and furious wit have made her the most magnetic presence in any room she enters, whether as a kid with a wicked grin or as a woman who’s learned to weaponize it. In Lila and Elena, she created a pair of friends who barely have to speak in order to understand each other perfectly, which can result in either incomparable support or unimaginable pain if one strikes out at the other in the way she knows will hurt the most. When Ferrante’s novels were first published, starting with “My Brilliant Friend” in 2011, they gained a devoted following of largely women readers who appreciated Ferrante’s attention to the thornier aspects of close female friendship -jealousy, codependence, resentment - as well as its many particular joys. ![]() The television series, on which the deliberately mysterious Ferrante (a pseudonym) has a writing credit on all episodes, does the same, using narration from an older Elena to guide the stories and blur the lines between memories and facts as the character tries to reconcile such boundaries for herself. Ferrante’s writing is dense with detail, straightforward and yet prone to underlining metaphorical allusions. ![]() This gorgeous, obviously symbolic series of shots is exemplary of “My Brilliant Friend,” HBO’s Italian adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels about Elena, Lila, the fierce and complex friendship between them extending from the 1950s through the present, and the tiny Naples town they more and more reluctantly call home. ![]()
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