My Brilliant Friend - General Discussion

[wonderwoman]

my father’s parents were born in naples and immigrated in the early 20th century. best as i can tell, lenu and lila were born in the late 1940s, which would make them a few years older than me. but their parents are of my parents’ generation. reading the novels illuminated a great deal about my father and siblings. the series brought beautiful visuals to that illumination. looking forward to the next chapter(s). 

[aghst]

I recently watched The Best of Youth, which explores the lives of two Italian brothers and their families over a 40 year period, from the mid '60s to the early 2000s.

It feels in many ways like My Brilliant Friend or rather, it may be possible that the directors and writers of MBF were influenced by The Best of Youth, which won all kinds of awards when it came out in 2003.

It's a 6-hour movie but I believe it was broadcast on Italian TV as a mini series.

Maybe it's just to American viewers that two different Italian works seem similar.  Well MBF has just started covering the era that The Best of Youth starts with but the main characters in the latter are from a middle-class family.  The brothers are finishing up university when the film opens yet they end up pursuing rather modest careers for reasons that are shown in the movie.

It also happens to feature some precocious young actresses, who had to carry close-up shots and show hurt and other emotions.

Highly recommended while waiting for season 3 of MBF.  It's hard to get at but there are DVDs (ridiculously expensive on Amazon) but my local public library had them.

 

 

 

[ProudMary]

This was a very nice surprise as this series seems to be too often overlooked as peak TV. The Hollywood Reporter is doing a number of year-end top 10 lists including "The 10 Best TV Shows of 2020." Look what comes in as their top choice!
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/inkoo-kang-the-10-best-tv-shows-of-2020
 

Quote

1. My Brilliant Friend (HBO)
The roads not taken start to diverge dramatically in the devastating sophomore season of My Brilliant Friend, subtitled The Story of a New Name. Set in postwar Naples and following the lives of two smart, ambitious, competitive girls — one of whom is allowed to continue her education after elementary school while the other is not — the Italian-language adaptation finally lives up to its source material of Elena Ferrante’s beloved novels, with aching performances, Hitchcock-suspenseful scenes, luscious production design and enough emotional complexity to fill the entire Mediterranean.

 

[chediavolo]

Is this show returning anytime soon?

[aghst]

We hope but pandemic.

Those actresses will really look much older if and when there is another season.

[aghst]

Here is an interview from April from the new show runner, who's taking over in season 3.

They shot for 3-4 months last November and expected to finish filming by September.

What is interesting is that they are keeping the same leads.  I thought the original plan was for them to use older actresses by season 3.

But maybe because of the delays due to the pandemic, the young actresses may be able to credibly play characters in their mid 20s?

https://variety.com/2021/tv/directors/my-brilliant-friend-season-3-director-daniele-luchetti-1234952331/

 

I think one of the recent HBO promos of their various shows briefly showed MBF characters, so maybe towards the end of this year or early next year, season 3 will be released.

 

[aghst]

Season 3 trailers were released on Wednesday in Rome.  Season 3 begins on February 6 in Italy and on HBO Max on Feb. 28.

Quote

The eight-episode adaptation of Ferrante’s 1970s-set novel, “Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay,” was unveiled Wednesday during an online presser held in Rome by RAI, ahead of its premiere on Feb. 6 on the pubcaster’s flagship RAI 1 station.

“My Brilliant Friend: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay” follows Lila (Gaia Gerace), who married at 16, has a young son, left her husband and comfortable life and is now working in a factory under tough conditions. Elena, aka Lenù, (Margherita Mazzucco) meanwhile has left the Naples neighborhood, earned her college degree and published a successful novel, all of which has opened doors to an affluent and high-brow world. 

Both women, in different ways, are pushing against the boundaries of a life of misery, ignorance and submission. They navigate the opportunities that have opened up due to 1970s societal changes, and they are still very much bound to each other.

The actresses are both 18 and will be playing women in their 20s in season 3.

I believe they were like 14 when they both started the series, as non actresses, pulled from middle schools.

They've both gotten a few other parts since season 2 aired in 2020 -- well the one playing Lila has gotten a couple of other parts while the one playing Elena has gotten one other part.  Are they going in on careers in acting, skipping university?

Season 1 aired in 2018 so it's been only 4 years but of course the girls were involved at least a year before the first season.

Pretty sure the plan wasn't to have them playing young women.  But as I understand it, the books go into the characters in middle age, so if RAI and HBO plan to keep making adaptations of all the books, presumably they'll have to cast older actresses in a couple of seasons.

 

Direct link to the trailer:

 

So many things to watch but I might have to rewatch the first two seasons before Feb 28.

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by aghst

[aghst]

Inside look at season 3.

 

 

Florence in the '70s, should be interesting, before mass tourism.

New director or show runner from the previous 2 seasons so it should be interesting how different it is tonally, if there is a difference.

Young actresses are grown up, approaching their roles through more sophisticated eyes.

Wow less than a week, gonna have to start rewatching the seasons now.

 

[chediavolo]

I tried searching & can’t find it. Is there a summary of last season somewhere? It’s been so long & I’ve forgotten so much I think I may be lost going into season 3 

[aghst]

5 hours ago, chediavolo said:

I tried searching & can’t find it. Is there a summary of last season somewhere? It’s been so long & I’ve forgotten so much I think I may be lost going into season 3 

Here is one set of recaps.

https://www.vulture.com/tv/my-brilliant-friend/

I see some Youtube recaps of seasons too.

I'm rewatching, almost finished with season 1.

Key thing is Lenu gets to continue her education, even though her mother is against it, because these kids go to work for these poor families after elementary school.

But Lila doesn't get to continue going to school yet she was reading a lot of the same books and studying Greek for instance, that Lenu was having difficulties with in high school.

So  both the girls grow into beautiful teens.  So much that Marcello Solara, from one of the rich families in town, becomes obsessed with Lila, who sees him as less than an animal.

She also learns that the Solaras and Caraccis, the other rich family, both derived their wealth from trading in contraband, working with the Camorra, and gouging the poor people in town with the prices.

Lila's abusive father wants her to marry Marcello, who buys the family a TV and tries to really bribe them.

At the same time, Lenu spends time in Ischia where she has the hots for Nino Saratorre, a boy two years older.  But she's instead sexually assaulted by Donatello, Nino's father, who's also going around romancing all these women.

 

Then I believe Lila marries Stefano Caracci, just to avoid getting married to Marcello Solara.  At the wedding, the Solaras, who are suppose to be rivals of Caracci, show up and Lila becomes livid.

Their marriage is loveless, though she has a child.  Eventually she runs away and lives in some hovel, ends up having to work in a factory, is a shell of the brilliant child she used to be.

Meanwhile Lenu goes to university in Pisa, dates a few guys.  My recollection is she hangs out with Nino around this time but I don't remember more than that.

I think season 2 ends in the 60s, Lenu is about to graduate or just graduated.

 

[aghst]

Finished my rewatch.

Lenu wants Nino more than anything.  She’s also loyal to Lila throughout.

Or she’s a glutton for punishment because neither of them treat her well.

Lila mocks her for trying to socialize with a rich, well-educated crowd and this hurts Lenu that she avoids Lila for months to finish and get her diploma, which leads to her getting admitted to university in Pisa.

But she reconnects with Lila, gets her to rent a home on Ischia because she knows Nino will be there.

So she and Lila starts spending time with Nino and his friend, but her hope is to get close to Nino.  She’s horrified as Lila and Nino fall for each other and she helps them cover up their affair from Stefano.

The episode is called The Betrayal but Elena admits that she didn’t tell either of them about her interest in Nino.  Yet Lila had asked her more than once if she liked Nino and Lenu kept denying.

So she leaves for Pisa, more determined to get out of the neighborhood and Naples.  She dates a guy from a rich family but he leaves her.  Then she meets another guy from a connected family and they become engaged.

For some reason, she writes a novel in a burst of inspiration and shows it to her fiancée, who shows it to his mother a publisher.  The novel is published while she was contemplating taking an exam to be a school teacher.

She comes home and sees her old teacher, the one instrumental in getting her family to keep her in school, has passed away and sent some books and school grade cards to her.  But among these materials is The Blue Fairy, a short story Lila wrote when she was just 10.

Lenu realizes that her novel is largely inspired by Lila’s story.  She catches up with Lila who’s left Stefano and is working in the salami factory, with her hands ruined by the horrible work.

Season 2 ends with an event to discuss Elena’s novel and from the audience pops up Nino, praising her novel, defending it against someone who criticized it.

Lenu smiles at him, even though he ran away with Lila, only to get fed up with her and leave her, after impregnating her.

So she has a future ahead of her but is she going to get drawn into Nino again in season 3?  Or continue to keep in touch with Lila, even though she hates Naples?  Her fiancée is from Turin, which is even further away from Naples than Pisa is.  We know some of season 3 will be in Florence so if Lenu is going to be in Lila’s orbit, seems like Lila will need to get out of Naples herself.

[aghst]

S03.E01 Indecencies

Quote

After Nino's appearance in Milan and a scathing review, Elena questions her feelings for her fiancé Pietro - and her skills as a writer

First scene picks up right after the season 2 finale left off, Elena having a book signing where Nino pops up.

Lenu is ready to dump her fiance Pietro right then and there and go off with Nino, who chose Lila over her, abandoned Lila and his son -- he at least asks whether his child is a boy or a girl.  He also shit talks Lila, how she has no dedication, not even with sex, which makes Lenu question whether she's not good at sex.

But she goes to dinner with her future in-laws and Nino and Pietro shows up.  After dinner, Pietro wants to spend the night with her but Lenu can only watch Nino walk away elsewhere.

She let Donato Sarratore degrade her but she won't sleep with her fiancé?

 

She returns to Naples where she hears her picture is in the paper.  Turns out it's a scathing review of her book, something about a "young woman trying to hide her lack of talent."

Ouch!

She's sobbing and Pietro and his parents reassure her, telling her there will be good reviews coming out soon.  But Lenu wonders if Lila has read her novel, because hers is the only opinion she cares about.

Once a doormat always a ...

Opinions she formed when she was a little girl in that dusty neighborhood override all the education and things she witnessed and experienced.

Michele shows her a review by Donato Sarratore who says the book isn't for those under 18.  Turns out he probably recognized the "racy pages" Elena included in her novel as depicting their disturbing scene on the beach.

So the poor in that Naples neighborhood are parochial when it comes to works which have some graphic sex.  Her younger brothers get into fights because other boys call her a whore for the book.

Lenu's mother blows a gasket -- what else is new -- when she finds out that Lenu doesn't plan to get married in a church or have a big wedding reception party.  She boasted that since she gave birth to her, she's more clever than she is and would have gone just as far academically if she was given the chances.  Then she shows how small-minded she is.

Back in Milan she runs into her old boyfriend Franco and Mariarossa, Pietro's brother.  She also meets a young mother, who tells her a sad tale about how much she loved the father but in the end, he abandoned her and their child before she even gave birth.

The name of the father is Nino Sarratore.

Maybe it will finally break her fever for Nino.  OTOH, she's going to hook up with Lila again at some point.

I guess that's what the books are about, how they're close to the end or well into middle age.  Yet realistically, Elena has a future and can live an entirely different life than anyone in the neighborhood she grew up in, including Lila.

She also wants very little to do with Naples, where people are less educated, speak the Neopolitan dialect that the richer North Italians look down on.  Of course this snobbery is a different kind of parochialism than the religious, uneducated parochialism of Naples that Lenu knows so well.

Lenu offers to pay for a TV and telephone for her family.  But she will be living in Florence since Pietro has got a job as a professor there.  How will Lila get out of that sausage factory so that they can continue their friendship?

[chediavolo]

I hope the next episode focuses on Lila.  All about Lenu in this one. I don’t find her interesting or likable. 

[ProudMary]

6 hours ago, chediavolo said:

I hope the next episode focuses on Lila.  All about Lenu in this one. I don’t find her interesting or likable. 

It seems as if Episode 2 will focus on Lila.  

 

[aghst]

These two characters will be involved in each other's lives for most of their lives.  If you remember, the show started with a middle aged Elena getting a call from Rino, Lila's son, that she has gone missing.

 

But in reality you wonder how long they'd stay in touch if one of them remains in Naples while the other goes to university in the north, gets married and lives up there.

Elena may visit back home to Naples or even Lila may come to visit her.  But if Elena starts working, she will have less and less contact with Lila.

The books however are suppose to be about their friendship so Lenu wants to maintain her friendship, even though Lila has been cruel to her -- and just about everyone else she gets close to.

Still the show has depicted a lot of their lives apart from each other.  Will see if that continues since they no longer have the same director/showrunner from the first two season.

I re-watched My True Brilliant Friend, kind of a behind the scenes doc on the two lead actresses.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9426482/

 

You can tell Margarita Mazzuco (Elena) really liked working with Saverio, the original director, because he guided them through all those rehearsals, turning two young girls with no acting experience (Gaia Gerace was in school plays and an acting club but Margarita didn't do any acting even in school plays) into credible actors for a major show.

 

 

[tennisgurl]

As soon as the young woman said that her deadbeat baby daddy was a professor, I knew it was going to be Nino. Lenu is so smart in so many ways but she just cant let go of that loser. She knows that Nino isn't a quality guy, no matter how charming he is, she knows he choose Lila over her, she's engaged to another man, but she is still over the moon for him. Even now that she knows he abandoned his own son she will probably still obsess over him, she just cant shake her attraction to him. 

Its great to see the show back, even though I missed Lila. It looks like we are going to get a Lenu episode and then a Lila episode, then hopefully they will meet up again, this show is always at its best when they're together. Lenu seemed even more quiet and passive than usual, possibly due to nerves about her book or the fact that she is clearly not in love with her fiancé. It took so much to get her to really react to almost anything, she really is a mirror to Lila, who reacts with huge emotions to everything.

Glad to see Lenu's mom is just as likable as always, even after Lenu promised to get them a television and phone she cant stop treating her daughter like crap. At least she's aware of it. "You cant stand me right?" "Yes." "Me neither." You can also really tell that we are moving into the 70s, a lot of 70s clothes going on. 

[aghst]

That's the thing Lenu still compares every guy she dates to Nino.

Something in her brain got hard-wired when she saw him and he proposed when they were like 10 years old.

It's not uncommon for young women to make bad choices, to be blind to certain personality flaws or bad behavior.

They usually grow out of it but maybe this is more than Lenu being inexperienced in the ways of love.

When they were on Ischia and she was covering so that Lenu could sneak away to spend the night with Nino, Elena said something like "she was going to fuck him all night instead of me."

That's the adult Elena as narrator using vulgarity for effect, given that she's an accomplished author by that point.

Maybe she believes throughout her life in amour fou rather than finding a "dependable" life partner.

Edited March 3, 2022 by aghst

[aghst]

S03.E02 The Fever

Quote

A nervous Elena introduces Pietro to his future in-laws.  Later Lila urgently sends for her lifelong friend.

Lenu’s fiancé Pietro meets her family and asks her father for her hand in marriage.  Her mother demands to know why they aren’t getting married in the church.

Pietro deftly dodges these questions.  But as he puts the engagement ring on her, she feels like she’s being coerced, suffocated?

She may not love him but he’s her ticket out of the neighborhood that she’s come to despise, coming from a well-off family and having a prestigious job with steady income.

But Lenu has apparently made some money herself from her book, as she bought her family a TV and a telephone, luxuries which few of their neighbors have.  Her mother suspects she’s planning to buy a car and going to learn to drive.

Before she can map out her future, Lila summons her and makes her promise to take care of her son should something happen to her.

While Elena has been graduating and has a chance for a much better life, Lila has gone though hell in that salami factory, which has made her sick and angry, beaten down.

She ran away from her husband and the neighborhood, believing that the shitty place and  job at least separated her from the neighborhood and the ruthless Solaras.  But Bruno the owner of the salami factory is in debt to the Solaras so she can’t get away.

Michele Solara is quite something, begging her to work for him, be his mistress, while at the same time insulting her looks yet wanting to conquer her and put her in her place.

Elena realizes that Lila’s depressing life could have also been her fate and she’d be stuck in that hellish place too if not for Lila driving her to excel academically, even giving her money to continue her studies.

She’s indebted to Lila in many ways.  If Lenu becomes a successful writer, she’d probably help Lila escape.

 

 

 

[izabella]

I'd forgotten how grim and sad this series is. 

21 hours ago, aghst said:

Pietro deftly dodges these questions.  But as he puts the engagement ring on her, she feels like she’s being coerced, suffocated?

She may not love him but he’s her ticket out of the neighborhood that she’s come to despise, coming from a well-off family and having a prestigious job with steady income.

I'm wondering if she will actually go through with it and marry Pietro.  If she does, it will end in disaster. She's so hung up on Nino, I don't think anyone else will measure up.  Yet, the only reason she's so into Nino, a selfish loser who treats women like they are disposable, is that she has no or very low self-esteem, and she doesn't think she deserves more than that.   Ugh, and her promise to Lila...am I wrong in wondering if she agreed just to have a link to Nino? 

What I really don't understand is how Lenu had a relationship with her previous boyfriend, and now with her fiancee, when she is practically mute all the time.  I don't think she said word at the family table when Pietro was busy asking for permission to marry her. 

Lila's life is the worst.  Was there really no other place she could have worked?  The smell alone would be sickening, never mind everything else.   Why is she refusing to see a doctor?

Edited March 9, 2022 by izabella

[aghst]

Options for women were limited at that time.

Especially one without any education.

Girls are taken out of school as soon as they're big enough to do some menial labor.

That is still the case in many developing countries, forget about educating kids out of poverty, as soon as they're able, they go to work.

But after hearing Lila's sad tale, Lenu seems to recognize that she could have had the same fate, probably married to some oaf and then having a lot of kids before 30.

 

Lila refused to put up with Stefano or give in to Marcello or Michele Solara because she found them all revolting.  But clearly there are women who are willing to sleep with them and treat them like kings while they mistreat them.  Not just for the money but they probably saw their mother in similar relationships and that was their main reference.

So Lila is smart but also a martyr of sorts, denied ways to better her lot the way Lenu was able to find a way out of that neighborhood and mindset.

 

 

 

[aghst]

Season 4 will be the final season and both leads will be replaced by older actresses as they enter later adulthood, probably approaching middle age.

 

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/alba-rohrwacher-elena-hbo-my-brilliant-friend-season-4-1235192813/

Quote

Alba Rohrwacher (“The Lost Daughter,” “The Wonders”) is set to play Elena, aka Lenù, in the fourth and final season of RAI/HBO show “My Brilliant Friend.”

Just as season three of the Elena Ferrante adaptation, directed by Daniele Luchetti, kicks off in the U.S. where it debuted on Feb. 28. on HBO and HBO Max to positive reviews, Italian viewers of the final episode of the show’s third instalment, aired locally on pubcaster RAI, have found out that going forward Lenù will no longer be played by young Neapolitan actor Margherita Mazzucco.

 

[aghst]

The most loathsome character on My Brilliant Friend:

Quote

Ferrante’s series has become a huge success internationally—the kinds of books your mother, your partner, and all your friends have read. It’s been hailed as a revolutionary portrayal of female friendship, which it is, but it’s also a devastating depiction of the most awful crush you had in high school. The TV series doesn’t seem to have found as broad an audience, but the fans it has are passionate, and we are now collectively experiencing the pain of watching the misdeeds of its most loathsome character.

Nino Sarratore makes his first appearance early in both the book and TV series as a love interest for the shy, bookish Elena “Lenù” Greco. When the two are only children, he recognizes her intelligence and tells her he wants to marry her one day. It seems logical for them to be together—in elementary school, they’re both top of their class, and as they grow up, they’re among the only local kids who go on to high school and college. Nino’s also a few years older, his father is a writer, and he’s looped into the communist political scene, so he’s not only a crush, but an intellectual role model.

Most of My Brilliant Friend takes place when the characters are in their teens and early 20s, and Nino is played by Francesco Serpico, a 24-year-old actor most succinctly described as the Italian Timothée Chalamet. He’s got the same long, lanky frame, mop of curls, and moody, artsy vibe. He’s consumption chic, a member along with Ben Whishaw and Adrien Brody of what a friend has called “the concave chest club.”

https://slate.com/culture/2022/03/my-brilliant-friend-season-3-on-hbo-tvs-most-legendary-sleazeball.html

The Guardian review of season 3.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/mar/10/my-brilliant-friend-review-this-gorgeous-drama-is-television-at-its-best

 

 

[aghst]

S03.E03  The Treatment

Quote

Concerned about Lila’s worsening health, Elena seeks advice from her future mother-in-law Adele, who encourages her to write an exposé on the Soccavo plant and the mounting unrest between rival unions. After several doctors’ visits, Lila becomes determined to move back to the neighborhood despite being viewed as a pariah.

Lenu is trying to get Lila medical care and never returning to the factory but Pasquale wants Lila to be some symbol for oppressed working class people.

Pasquale accuses Lenu of only caring for her friend rather than the working classes.  Wow these communists ...

Lenu and Lila decide to get birth control pills, which must have been very new at the time in Italy, even though neither were married, which was supposedly a condition for getting a prescription.

Lenu writes an expose on the salami factory and pressures Bruno into giving Lila full backpay.

With that money, Lila wants to move back to the neighborhood, into some apartment even in worse condition than the one she's living in near the salami factory.

Her father ignores her and tells her son that his mother is a whore but she wants to put up with the abuse there.

Lenu  tries to gauge the temperature, how the Carracis and Solaras might react to Lila moving back.  Alfonso, who got a girl pregnant, tells Lenu that he's gay.

Then Lenu visits Gigiola, who's about to marry Michele, in a villa with a view of the ocean.  But she says Michele tells her he doesn't love her but he has to have a wife and kids and the only woman he really loves is Lila.

First Marcello, now Michele wants Lila.  

Feminism can not come soon enough to Italy but who knows if they will show it this season.  

The girls are so smart that they recognize they're too good for the neanderthals in the neighborhood, though Lenu can't help but want Nino.

Kind of amazing that she has chances to get away from this neighborhood, though it looks like she won't be treated much better by the supposedly more enlightened Pietro.

[chediavolo]

Jeez, guess not many people are watching this. I was in love with it season one and season two and then of course we had a long Interlude in between I finally got high speed Internet and the ability to stream so it just makes shows like this less special although I still love it being in Italian I love the actresses I just can’t remember any damn thing about the stories/characters. 

[aghst]

I watched the first two seasons before the start of this new season.

Each season is from a different book but it's clear that some of the things which happened in season one, when they were like 10 years old or less, still reverberate in season 3 when they're in their early 20s.  Lenu is a college graduate, was headed towards being a teacher but now looking at being a writer.  Lila is a mother already.

This show came from books but they take a real novelistic approach, covering so much of their lives, with the narrator periodically explaining what Elena was thinking.

Slow-burn shows like this aren't going to get a large audience.  They have broad acclaim but people don't watch.  The Wire was similar, though at least they had some action which appealed to many American viewers, especially male viewers.

I suspect that this show appeals much more to a female audience.

[izabella]

It's not an easy show to watch.  There's a bleakness to everyone's lives that screams "they're all doomed to misery forever!"  Back when Lila's father threw her out the window into the courtyard and absolutely no one cared, I almost stopped watching.  The background of this show, and sometimes the foreground, is violence and abuse.  That's difficult to watch week after week with few joys, for anyone.  And that doesn't even include the emotional pain everyone is always in, again, with little relief.

On top of that, Lenu says so little and emotes so little, that's it's not easy to know what she is thinking or feeling, despite her being the narrator. 

Don't get me wrong.  I am fascinated by the show.  But it's not for everyone.

[tennisgurl]

It doesn't help that the two main characters can be difficult to get attached to. If Lenu didn't also narrate she would be a complete cipher, and Lila is just so intense she can be a lot to handle. I do find both of them to be really interesting and I am rooting for them, despite their often terrible choices, but I can see why its a show that isn't super mainstream.   

Why Lila wants to move back to her crappy neighborhood in her crappy new apartment is beyond me. I know that her choices are limited, but there has to be some better option. Its been awhile since we saw the neighborhood, its a tiny bit less grim than it was when we first saw it, but its still pretty much the place where happiness goes to die. 

Nino is forever lurking in the background like a slasher in a horror movie, about to show up at any moment to make everything worse. Lenu and Lila are in a good place, so I am sure he will be showing up soon to cause more bumps in their friendship again.

[izabella]

2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Why Lila wants to move back to her crappy neighborhood in her crappy new apartment is beyond me. I know that her choices are limited, but there has to be some better option.

I questioned that choice, too.  Not only is it a grim place, but it has all the grim people who haven't progressed beyond their narrow world there.  And she's going to live there with Enzo?  When her father calls her a whore to her face, and her son's?  While her ex who may or may not be her son's father, is also living there with his other family.  What could possibly go wrong?

[aghst]

Odds are against Lenu and Lila.  They were just born in the wrong place and time for their intellects.  They're a better off than their mothers and grandmothers but there are clear examples of other young women their age, who had the benefit of being raised in more privileged families, having more options for education and career, not being forced to marry some louts in their teens.

Lila could have stayed near that factory, which she doesn't plan to ever return to.  But unless that's the only rent she and Enzo can afford, no reason to be near those smoke stacks.

Even though she wasn't accepted back in the neighborhood, she'll figure it out or better yet, leave the place, as the montage in the opening suggests she's somewhere else?

 

[izabella]

Lenu was definitely lucky that her parents allowed her to go to school, and interested teachers helped to push her and show her how it was possible.  But I have no faith that she won't ruin her life for Nino somehow.

[aghst]

S03.E04:  Cold War

Quote

Elena and Lila plan to get a prescription for birth control pills, but the process turns out to be very complex. Adele surprises her daughter-in-law with an unexpected welcome.

So much for happiness and fulfillment for those who stay.

Pietro that SOB doesn't want her to get on the pill.  Knocks her up on wedding night.

He didn't care about Elena's education, just wanted a pretty young woman to play housewife and mother to his children.

He hides out in the study and avoids Lenu except when he's feeling horny.

Lenu is happy during her pregnancy.  Then the cold reality of raising the kid hits her.  She still doesn't insist on going on the pill, makes him use a condom -- sometimes.

She should have transgressed, moaned out from the window overlooking Piazza Santa Croce.

So Lenu can only write fictionalized accounts of what happened in her old neighborhood, as much as she hated the place.

Lila tells her both her books are bad.  Now she and Enzo are a couple and they make good money.

So distressed is she by Lila's criticism that she lets herself get knocked up again.  She had that epiphany about how the women in the neighborhood became ugly as they gave birth and raised children.  She also hated that she inherited her mother's limp shortly after her first daughter was born.

But all that went out the window.  Despite her best intentions, she has the makings of a limiting, uninspiring life, like the other women in the old neighborhood.

[ProudMary]

I'm still in, but geez, this season should come with a Prozac prescription. 

[cardigirl]

I really like this show, it's so beautiful, even if it is slow-moving. The examination of these two women's lives in a time when great changes were being made for women's rights, workers' rights, as well as the intimate study of the relationship between them is magnificent. 

Even though it's difficult to empathize with their actions all the time, it is easy to understand how they learn from each other, how each of them encourages or goads the other on, and Lenu describing how all this made her feel is so intimate. I'm really happy that HBO supports this show. It's not flashy action but a well-told and well-acted story. 

 

 

 

 

[aghst]

I didn't read the books but I presume at some point, things get a lot better for at least Elena, who appears to be a very successful author by the time she's narrating this story in her middle to senior age.

Otherwise, it's hard to imagine these books becoming huge bestsellers if things are always depressing.

If and when they become successful and fulfilled, it will be a story of triumph and overcoming all the social obstacles they've faced.

 

[tennisgurl]

I was really hoping that things would at least go well for a second after Lenu got married, but things went to crap pretty much instantly. Lenu is at least writing again, even if her most recent book apparently is apparently a pretentious bore. Also not surprised that Lenu and Lila went a few years without speaking after Lenu got mad at Lila, that's how their relationship always goes. They appear in and out of each others lives, often after hurting each other, but they always find each other again. It sounds like things are looking up for Lila, sometimes it feels like one of them always has to be ahead of the other.

Nice seeing little Lila and Lenu briefly, they were just so cute, and they really do look like the young versions of the adult versions. 

[aghst]

S03.E05:  Terror

Quote

Elena embraces the feminist struggle and argues with Pietro about it; Pasquale and Nadia show up at Elena's house; their chaotic behaviour upsets Pietro.

No matter how much she tries to leave her past behind her, the past keeps chasing her down.

Violence between the Communists and Fascists escalate back in her home.  Gino the schoolmate who once paid Elena to flash her breasts, is gunned down by a masked gunman who looks like Pasquale.

I guess they were laying the groundwork, with Pasquale talking about how the mafia was sucking the life out of the people in the neighborhood eventually graduating to violence.

I know there were leftist acts of terrorism in the '60s and '70s in Italy but didn't think some of the characters in the book/show would be involved.

What's surprising though is that the camorra allowed all that violence in the neighborhood to go on without ending it.  Couldn't have been good for all the businesses they controlled.

Lenu and Pietro contained themselves when Pasquale and Nadia visited, as they both insulted them and then had sex in the bathroom that Lenu cleaned up.  Can you imagine what Lila would have done?  She'd have grabbed a knife.

Pasquale kept speaking to her in Neopolitan and she really didn't engage, replying mostly in Italian.  Pasquale was hostile to Pietro and then trashed Elena's life.

 

Lenu gets into the growing women's lib movement but Pietro is unhappy that she took her daughters to a march.  She throws some feminist rhetoric and Pietro shows the privileged sexist that he is by slapping her.

Then Enzo brings Gennaro, Lila's son with her.  Michele Solara has been tempting the boy with sweets as a way to get at Lila so she gets Lenu to take him for the summer.

Pietro and Enzo get along far better so not everyone from the neighborhood are boors.

But Gennaro may be turning into another creep like the Solaras, trying to show his weenie to Elena's daughter.

Florence may not be far enough away from Naples and Lenu may have to find another faraway place to get away from her husband.

 

 

[CarolMK]

Episode 5 was hard to watch . I would have tossed out Pasquale and his girlfriend the minute they started with the insults. And then Lila decides to dump her 12 year old son for the summer ? No way would I agree to doing that unless it was my direct family, the kid barely knows them . And Lena’s husband isn’t really a nice guy after all. Not to mention the murders . Hopefully next week is better.

[izabella]

Pasquale and Nadia were so menacing under the guise of friendship!  I was holding my breath during that scene just waiting for violence to break out.  I was shocked when it didn't.

[izabella]

4 minutes ago, CarolMK said:

And then Lila decides to dump her 12 year old son for the summer ? No way would I agree to doing that unless it was my direct family, the kid barely knows them .

Ugh, never, and certainly not without knowing exactly why.  For a minute, I wondered if Lila was involved in the murders.

[chediavolo]

What about what happened with Gennarino & Lenu’s daughter? Normal childhood curiosity or something more sinister? He wasn’t just showing it to her , he talked about touching it. 

[izabella]

I think it was supposed to be childhood curiosity.  Gennarro said something like "this is what all the girls want to see" or "all the girls want to see it," in a matter of fact way, like he was just explaining his experience and thought she, too, might have her curiosity satisfied.  He stood a few feet away from her, and didn't move toward her.

I think Lenu decided to take it that way, anyway.

[aghst]

Yeah it may turn out to be nothing.

But Lila had been freaking out about Michele Solara trying to get to her by being nice to Gennaro, maybe influencing him.

Lenu may or may not be aware of this.  She wanted to know exactly why Lila foisted Gennaro on her for the summer.

But if you remember, the series started in season 1 with an adult Gennaro calling a middle aged Elena about his mother going missing.  So he presumably doesn't turn out to be some heinous mafia wannabe.

 

 

[aghst]

S05.E06  Becoming

Quote

After receiving shocking news from Lila about Elisa, Elena cuts the family holiday short to return to Naples.

Not only can she not get away from the old Neighborhood, Elena is now a part of the Solara family and they have a little get-together at her sister Elisa and Marcello Solara's home, to celebrate the birthday of the dragon queen Solara.

Lenu and Lila are cross, Lenu about having to take care of Lila's kid and Lila being judgmental about her choices from afar.

Gigiola isn't too happy about sitting down for lunch with Lila, whom Michele is openly lusting for.

Solaras talk up Lila's genius with data processing -- do camorristi run their finances through computers?  Lila keeps talking about how much money she makes a month.  She's not even 30 but she has gray hairs.

The dream Lenu has about fighting Lila, forcing her to read the pages from the German translation of her novel doesn't disturb her but she recognizes that she's been trying to become someone for most of her life in Lila's shadow or wake as she described it.

Just the mention of Nino going back to Naples and marrying some banker's daughter makes her anxious again, worried Lila would get back together with Nino.

While she rejects Pietro's assessment of Lila as having some kind of evil intelligence, she recognizes that she has to become someone for herself, apart from Lila.

But she can't quit these people, with all the familial and lifelong ties.

Even though she often speaks in Italian rather than Neopolitan dialect now as an adult, she's still bound to her origins.

[xhoipolloix]

I love this show. Not sure why because it is glum and all of the people are so unhappy. Maybe it's fascinating to hear the Italians (especially the Neopolitans) yell at each other over everything. It's kind of hilarious. My favorite part in this week's episode was when they were in a car stuck in traffic in the old neighborhood and Lenu insisted on driving. She proceeded to drive fast in the wrong lane and suddenly they arrived. Hilarious. 

Lenu and Lila's relationship is so complicated. I still can't get over Lila pawning her kid off on Lenu for the summer. Crazy stuff!

[meep.meep]

Pietro totally read Lila for what she is.  He can be a jerk at times, but he's really astute.

Being old and having worked with computers all my life, those machines are not going to last long in a dusty warehouse!  They need to be in an enclosed room with lots of air conditioning.

I couldn't believe that's the same actor playing Marcello - what happened to his beautiful smile?

[izabella]

9 hours ago, meep.meep said:

Pietro totally read Lila for what she is.  He can be a jerk at times, but he's really astute.

He completely saw through her.  It's too bad Lenu can't.  Lila does despise her.  And Lenu can't stop competing with her while feeling both inferior and superior to Lila at the same time.

On 4/5/2022 at 1:37 AM, aghst said:

Not only can she not get away from the old Neighborhood, Elena is now a part of the Solara family and they have a little get-together at her sister Elisa and Marcello Solara's home, to celebrate the birthday of the dragon queen Solara.

I don't really remember Elisa and Marcello.  I understand that Marcello is Michele's brother.  Can anyone jog my memory?  Have we seen them in any scenes before, aside from in the background?

What was in all those crates at the warehouse?

 

[aghst]

Marcello was the younger, dark-skinned brother who really wanted Lila, saw her dance.

Lila also threatened him with a knife.

Then Marcello got permission for her hand in marriage from her father but she wasn't having it.  He bought them a TV and so on but she married Stefano, the chubby grocery guy.

Marcello agreed to buy Lila's shoe design and open up a store.  When Lila worked there they sold a lot of shoes but she didn't want to get close to the Solaras so she ran away.

Michele then became enamored of her, recognizing her genius.

 

 

[izabella]

Ohh!  Now I remember!  Thanks!

[chediavolo]

Was this the final episode of the season? 

[ProudMary]

1 hour ago, chediavolo said:

Was this the final episode of the season? 

No. There are two more.