My Brilliant Friend’s first season ends in as beautiful and wrenching a fashion as it began
TV Reviews RecapMoments of beauty in life are worth recognizing. A tree, alive with color, is glimpsed at the other end of a dark tunnel. Pristine white dresses, made from rich fabrics, delicate lace, and buttons almost impossibly small, fill racks in a store, just waiting to be owned, worn, and endlessly admired. Light streams into a silent hallway. A smile springs from nowhere. A shoe fits perfectly.
Such moments can make the cruelties of life bearable, endurable—but they can also heighten the sting. Picture it: Out of a sky-blue car, shiny and graceful, and into the warm sunlight step two young men. The day is achingly lovely. They walk down a street. A young woman, tears stopped by dread, races ahead of them toward a room spilling over with joy. Every beam of sunlight makes it worse. This will be horrible, and the beauty of the day is an affront.
The beauty of Lila and Stefano’s wedding makes the inevitable arrival of the Solara brothers that much more dreadful. The same is true of the beauty of the shoes revealed on Marcello’s feet. And, in a very different sense, the loveliness of Saverio Costanzo’s direction makes all the vicious, cruel, heartbreaking moments in My Brilliant Friend—and in “La Promessa (The Promise)” in particular—harder to bear. That’s not a complain. That’s as it should be.
There’s a great deal to recommend My Brilliant Friend beyond the work of Constanzo (also one of the series’ writers) and series cinematographer Fabio Cianchetti. There’s the production design, set decoration, and costume design (Giancarlo Basili, Elio Maiello, and Antonella Cannarozzi, respectively). There’s the absolutely bewitching score, better than ever in this episode (by Max Richter, also the composer for The Leftovers). There’s the casting, frankly staggering, by Sara Casani and Laura Muccino, and of course, there is the cast. It wouldn’t work, none of it, without the cast, and they would have nothing to do without the words.
But Costanzo and Cianchetti’s work gives this adaptation of My Brilliant Friend much of its ache, because he captures it all, beautiful and heartbreaking elements alike, with such delicacy. Take the scene where Lenú (Margherita Mazzucco) picks out a wedding dress for Lila (Gaia Girace). She turns to the racks, and the dresses seem to glow slightly—not in a supernatural way, but the way someone with beautiful skin and a happy heart can seem to glow. It’s as though it comes from within. They are all beautiful, but when Lenú sees the perfect dress for Lila, you notice that it’s glowing differently. It looks to be a brighter white, a special white, and then you might notice that Lila’s face is half in shadow, and that Lenú’s clothes put her at odds with the soft beauty that surrounds her. That kind of thoughtfulness runs through nearly every frame of My Brilliant Friend, and one could be forgiven for being either entranced or driven away by it.
When it comes to one of the episode’s, and thus the season’s, most gripping scenes, both reactions are understandable, and the most common reaction might be to feel both at once. Lila locks herself in her room after learning that her father, brother, and husband-to-be have aligned with the Solaras. They all speak to her through the locked door, glimpsed only as colors and shapes through the frosted window. The themes of the episode are set up in the opening scene, as Lila, somewhat disappointed by the way her shoes look when brought to life off the page, is forced to talk Stefano down off a ledge of sorts, reminding him that compromises are necessary to achieving what you want. That idea floats back to the center of the story here and elsewhere. It’s shot accordingly. People seem connected until they are sharply divided—Lila stands up in the bath, Antonio peers over from his table, Nino turns away, Lila asks to mark an essay and Lenú accepts. To be reunited, they offer compromises or make overtures or promises. Sometimes they fail.
But sometimes they don’t. Constanzo shows us those moments, too. Until the episode’s closing moments, the wedding comes off nearly without a hitch, though in terms of successful connection, it doesn’t hold a candle to the one in which Lila calls Lenú, an intelligent woman who (at minimum) does not believe she shares Lila’s gifts, her “brilliant friend.” It’s not merely striking because it’s the title. It’s striking—perfect, really—because it is honest but also packed with meaning. Lila seems to be setting a new bargain, a new compromise: We can still love each other, provided you will keep your education (and your former teacher) from me. You are permitted to have things I will never have, provided you work hard enough for both of us.
It’s not an easy show, but it might be a brilliant (sorry) one. And until it returns, we’ll have to content ourselves with something lovely.
Osservazioni vaganti
- I can’t remember this from the books: Does Lenú tell Lila what happened to her on Ischia?
- “Novels don’t serve any purpose.” Someone should introduce Nino Sarratore to Kyle Scheible of Lady Bird.
- We’ll (hopefully) see you for season two!
15 Comments
Outstanding ending to such a rewarding and beautiful series gloriously acted and beautifully realized which has won near unanimous and widespread acclaim.Of course it didn’t make the AV Club top 25.
I dunno. Having read the books, I didn’t really see the point of an adaptation, and the first two episodes did nothing to change my mind. Does it get better? Or does it just continue to alternate things that happened in the book with fierce stares from the two main characters?
What is the point of any adaptation, really? It’s a chance to see what we’ve read come to life outside of our minds. It’s beautifully done, doesn’t let down the source material, and reframes it in a new medium. I enjoyed this more than I enjoyed the first book, because the first book was SO in Lenu’s head and Lenu’s head is a miserable fucking place, it was such a downer, I kept putting the book down and not picking it back up for months. This, I easily devoured because the other characters were more alive and engaging. I enjoyed it immensely, but of course, ymmv.
Fair enough – I think the most interesting thing about the novels is how inside Lenu’s head they are, so it makes sense that we’d feel differently about the adaptation. I do feel like the first two episodes didn’t have enough of her voice to make them interesting (but alternatively, too much voiceover would have been exhausting – which is part of why I just can’t see an adaptation working for me). That said, the first book got better as it went along, so maybe the show does the same thing.
At first I was a bit taken aback by your comment “I didn’t really see the point of an adaptation”. But Alison explained it better than I could have. Honestly there are so many book societies that despise film adaptions of their favorite authors, but film, when well done can open up a novel and breath a different light into the source material in measures equally rewarding.My Brilliant Friend does exactly that. Get back to us once you finish, I think you will be very impressed.
The later episodes did a good job, I though, capturing her voice and internality without dwelling in her depressive nature there as much as the books did.
I totally agree with you about all of the intense staring with nobody saying anything. It made the episodes drag on.
I don’t think she ever tells anyone what happened on Ischia, at least not through Book 1 and 2 which is as far as I’ve read. This was a very well done finale, but I remember the ending of the book being especially powerful – so much so that despite really not enjoying most of it, my opinion was dramatically changed and I picked up Book 2 immediately. I then gave Book 1 away and haven’t gotten it back. Can anyone point to a specific passage that was more powerful in the last pages that is diluted at all here? Did Lila say someone to Lenu about Stefano in the book that is missing from the show?
Yep. Lila very clearly tells Lenu, right after the Solaras show up, that her marriage is over. There’s a lot of discord in that final scene, everyone sees it. First Lila is this perfect, beautiful bride who everyone is kind of jealous and mean about, but then when the Solaras show up and her anger is extremely visible, the wedding takes on an even more judgmental flavor. As I remember it, it seemed only Lenu really understood what had happened.
Spoiler below to answer Allison’s question to the best of my memory…******Lenú writes about what happens on Ischia later when she’s an author, but from the perspective of a character. Many people suspect it was her perspective, and it’s not explicit but in my interpretation Lila can also tell. The text upsets Lila a lot. It could be because she felt she and the neighborhood being exploited, it could be because such personal stories didn’t match the image ofthe academic she envisioned Lenú as becoming, but it could also be because of what happened to Lenú.
That is an entirely different incident that she writes about – it hasn’t happened yet in the show…. it’s all book 2, the incident and the writing about it.
You’re so right! I thought they had minimized the second event for the show, but of course it coincides with and is sort of catalyzed by another major event that happens during book 2.
Now I know how Game of Thrones readers felt for the red wedding.
I’m so upset I didn’t realize you were covering this series! I loved
watching the books come to life and I’ve only had my mom to talk to
about it!
I made the same connection to Lady Bird! Both characters are insufferable twits. I’m not sure I will ever get over wanting to punch Timothée Chalamets face 😄