The Brilliant Friend 3: Lila and Lenù, protagonists of a masterpiece

It doesn’t matter how high Lenù makes it, how many copies of her book she has sold and how elegant she will be at her wedding: if Lila does not show that she approves of her every effort, Lenù will continue to feel “almost”, half of something that needs to be bridged by she doesn’t even know what it is. History of those who flee and those who remainthe third chapter ofBrilliant friend no longer directed by Saverio Costanzo but by Daniele Luchetti, he insists on one of the most interesting concepts of Elena Ferrante’s quadrilogy: competition as a driving force to do better, confrontation as a spring to achieve happiness even if we know, in our hearts, that Lila and Lenù will never be really happy, forced to look at the results of the other for a lifetime with that pinch of malice which, after all, is the engine of any self-respecting friendship. The Brilliant Friend 3 it starts where it left off History of the new surname: with Lenù in seventh heaven for the publication of his first novel, judged by some as unscrupulous and depraved, and Lila forced into the factory in grueling shifts that bend her body and even her spirit.

Her blue apron, which not too remotely recalls the cloak of the Blue Fairy, the protagonist of the first fairy tale she wrote as a child, is now as dirty and worn as her soul: the rebellion that animated his body like the venom of a rattlesnake seems to have dozed off as if by magic, forcing her to deal with a job she hates and a life she didn’t choose. After the shipwrecked marriage with Stefano, Enzo gave her the opportunity to build a future starting from scratch, but this is certainly not what Lila hoped for herself: in her heart, she dreamed of competing with Lenù on herself. land of her. She wanted to study to prove she was the best of her; she would have liked to graduate before her to make her understand that the times in which the teacher Oliviero looked at her with admiration had never passed, and would have chosen her best match because her sensuality would never have had rivals. Instead, Lila is stripping meat with her bare hands while Lenù obsessively reads the reviews of her book even if, after all, the only review she would like to read is Lila’s. L’Brilliant friend 3 then brings us back to the diagram already implanted in the last season: Lila goes down and Lenù goes up, although, in this round, things will evolve soon. Together with a social context animated by riots and violence, the two girls grow up and become adults while retaining the childhood that will lead them to always look down on each other. They love and hate each otherlook for each other and move away, as if between them there was an invisible string destined to unite them just as in the time of the rag dolls, when Lila threw Lenù’s one in Don Achille’s basement and Lenù, out of spite, did the same with her .

In the midst of this existential conflict that leads two women to go on with their lives looking for a way to avoid being “broken”, to use a term dear to Ferrante, The Brilliant Friend confirms itself as a masterpiece of writing and representation, as well as one of the most successful adaptations that bring a book to life on screen. The skill of the interpreters, by Margherita Mazzucco and Gaia Girace, by Giovanni Buselli and Francesco Serpico, he manages to get the characters out of the page in such an accurate and credible way as to trap readers in a spell in which they no longer distinguish what is on paper and what is on TV. The direction of Luchetti, in full continuity with that of Costanzo who, in this round, only signs the screenplay together with Francesco Piccolo, Laura Paolucci and Elena Ferrante herself, an evanescent presence in a set that, like Lenù with Lila, was waiting for the his emails and his notes to understand if the direction of the shooting was the right one, returns toBrilliant friend that beauty and those colors that, from the driven neorealism of the first season, they are slowly moving towards the colorful and colorful explosion of the Sixties, on a journey where nothing will be taken for granted. The series, produced by Fandango, The Apartment, Fremantle and Wildside in collaboration with Rai Fiction and HBO Entertainment, should make us proud for many reasons: for having given justice to the imagination of an author who has created a “fever” around the world. Which had not been measured for some time; for having recreated in great detail a world of which we keep a very subtle trace in our memory, and for having allowed us to discover very pure talents such as Mazzucco and Girace who unfortunately, as happened for The Crownthis season will leave Lenù and Lila entrusting them to the care of two new actresses for the last chapter. The Brilliant Friend, however, it wouldn’t have been the same without themand that’s why they enjoy it History of those who flee and those who remainbroadcast for four weeks every Sunday, from 6 to 27 February on Rai1, is the best way to pay tribute to their skill.

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The Brilliant Friend 3: what we should expect

The Brilliant Friend: Lenù and all those who have always felt like an “almost”

The Brilliant Friend: Lenù and the desire to no longer be “one step behind” compared to Lila