Streaming on SBS On Demand - Rod Bishop recommends MY BRILLIANT FRIEND Season 4 (Saverio Costanzo, Laura Bispuri, Daniele Luchetti, Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, 2024)

 

Irene Maiorino as Lila; Alba Rohrwacher as Lenù, My Brilliant Friend, series 4

 

When Elena Ferrante published the fourth and final novel of her Neapolitan Quartet in 2014, the “Index of Characters” at the beginning of the book contained 54 names.

Using this list helped put names to faces during the first three seasons of My Brilliant Friend. For this fourth season, it’s essential. 

Irene Maiorino as Lila; Alba Rohrwacher as Lenù, 
My Brilliant Friend, series 4

Even though season four starts exactly where season three ended, Ferrante’s central characters, the life-long friends Lenù (Elena) and Lila, have been recast with two new actors in their roles.

And they’re not the only ones. Nino, Lenù’s lover at the end of season three and the start of season four is also recast. Described as a “fake feminist ally”, Nino is also a past lover of Lila and the only visual similarity between the Nino of previous seasons and this one, is his oversized eyewear.

Also recast are Lenù’s husband Pietro, and Pietro’s sister; and two of Lenù’s former lovers, Antonio and Franco.

It’s bold and it’s risky, and social media posts suggest not always successful with devoted viewers. The showrunner might legitimately argue it was unavoidable: the timeframe of this fourth novel spans 32 years and it’s better to make the changes in episode one instead of an abrupt change later in the series. CGI and prosthetic make-up aging for seven or more characters may not have been a financial option. Or a successful one.

The rest of the packaging is unchanged. An adaptation of what The New York Times called the ‘best fiction of the 21^st Century’, the writing is a faithful, nuanced, unsentimental, exploration of female friendship over six decades. The production values are state of the art and every episode is immersive, seductive and complex.

As many have pointed out, it covers motherhood, nostalgia, desire, misogyny, political violence (communists and fascists), sorrow, anger, shame, duty, radical feminism and class. 

The Guardian calls it: “impeccably stylish…television at its best”.

Author and journalist Taffy Brodesser-Akner asks: “Why is it not widely acknowledged to be the best show on television?”

I’ve got no idea.