The transposition of Elena Ferrante’s novel has a new (and wise) chapter
“The brilliant friend”, the second part in 8 episodes of the Rai Sunday story taken from the novels of Elena Ferrante (brought to the screen for the first time by Martone) boasts as a subtitle “the story of those who stay and those who flee”, exactly as also reads the epigraph of the beautiful film “Belfast”, which also adds for “who is lost”. Passed from the hands and eye of Saverio Costanzo to those of Daniele Luchetti, the almost twin and two-faced story of the two Neapolitan friends in their own way brilliant but differently, enters the age of husband, in that of wife and also ends up as tradition in the adulterous one. After all, it will be over 60 years of Lenù and Lila’s life, that is Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo. The first is the poised and intellectual girl who writes a bold and successful book, pursues the telluric and social movements of Italy in the 70s, gets married, has two girls, goes to live in Florence and finally betrays her husband, a high-ranking university professor. lineage targeted by the sixty-eight with the first love, also a teacher but more malleable and relativist even between the sheets.
The other is Lila, the best and worst friend, the one who remains in Naples, connives with the worst youth of the rich local “dolphins”, she too gets married, becomes a trade union activist in a charcuterie factory where employees are enslaved, has a son and goes through various sentimental troubles up to to reach relative well-being by sensing the technological business of the future and returning to the arms of those in power, as if everything passes by without interfering with her innate passivity. But an invisible thread, however, binds the two girls and it is precisely what testifies to the not always positive evolution of the country: the drama (not the series, we are on the national channel), thanks to a perfect cast even in the character actors, is the mirror of an Italy that pushes forward, goes from the poor but beautiful 50s, more than ever to the South, continues in the rampant 60s with a Milanese visit with the radical chic publisher (the good Daria Deflorian) and flows into the dark years of violence and terrorism, the 70s. Which are the ones that in the film appear more as cold reconstructed, a decal of a historical present that we have in mind but risks seeming a crib of stereotypes of the angry young people of the time, able to point a revolver at the professor who failed them in the exam. But the long film, ready for another new season but with other actresses, while a film by Maggie Gyllenhaal is released in theaters from Ferrante and Netflix has already booked a series always inspired by the mysterious writer who likes crowds, is convincing, yes climbs on history and on small family stories, makes fun of the genius of those who can write or maybe not, anticipates today’s gender themes already widely manifested by the first feminist gatherings that are not lacking in the reconstruction.
But the happiest moments, also for merit of the two interpreters who, agreed never get old but are always very good, especially Margherita Mazzucco who plays the lion’s share here and is of subtle and very contemporary ambiguity, but also the more true Gaia Girace who basically gets her hands dirty with the fascist reality of the Neapolitan riots and has more limited horizons ahead of him. We will see. In these 8 episodes of Luchetti, the housewife scenes, the family quarrels over the marriage, the looks between the two aimche, the affectionate misunderstandings between mother and daughter, up to a beautiful scene, that of the preparation of a table, have been very successful. which all sit together, the good and the bad, the democrats and not, the intellectuals and not: it looks like a piece by Eduardo, evoked several times. But even the bourgeois Florentine side with the sadness of a wife’s life immediately misunderstood, in a crisis of inspiration, ready for a beach holiday (Versilia?) And then attacked by the paw of her first love and therefore a torn confession to husband and girls, is very well psychologically reconstructed. Thus the story with two interrupted voices never fails to interest us even by siding here and there, sometimes with the benefit of the doubt as it should be in a choral comedy-tragedy that concerns the whole country, first with the joy of the poor people, the wonderful amarcord 50s, and then with the melancholy of fake middle class well-being.
March 23, 2022 (change March 23, 2022 | 15:43)
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