Romper: Who Plays Lila On ‘My Brilliant Friend’? The Complex Focal Point Of Elena Ferrante’s Novel Is Brought To Life

Posted on December 4, 2018 by admin2

Becca Bleznak – Dec 3, 2018

At the center of Elena Ferrante’s acclaimed Neapolitan Novels is the friendship between the narrator, Elena Greco, and her childhood companion, Lila Cerullo. The two are opposites in many ways, though both intelligent, thus the name of the first book, which has been adapted into an HBO miniseries. In order to do this faithfully, an intense casting process was required to find the girls at the center of the story. So who plays Lila in My Brilliant Friend?

There isn’t a straightforward answer here, as there are actually two Lilas. For the first couple of episodes, Elena and Lila are children attending primary school together, when Lila essentially chooses Elena to be her friend. The fearless protagonist faces challenges as she grows up, forced to abandon her studies in favor of the family’s cobbling business. Though this wasn’t uncommon at the time, Lena’s decision to continue with her education pulls the two girls apart at times and helps them find their way back to each other, in a story very different yet altogether relatable for most.

When the first Lila, Lila as child, appears onscreen, she is tiny — but conveys strength through her movements and sometimes prickly character. Ludovica Nasti, who, prior to this, had never acted before, is a natural Lila — My Brilliant Friend writer and director Serverio Costanzo called her “an unbelievable gem.”

Not only does she resemble Ferrante’s physical description for the character, which Constanzo remained faithful to, but she shares Lila’s outspoken nature. In an interview with The Guardian, Nasti shows off her similarities to the character. She tells the reporter that she enjoyed the more intense scenes of the shoot, and she draws a comparison to her self and Sophia Loren, who are both from Pozzuoli.

The New York Times: ‘My Brilliant Friend’: A Fairy Tale of Youth Gives Way to Messy Adolescence

Posted on November 28, 2018 by admin2

On The New York Times

Gal Beckerman, Alicia DeSantis, Nicole Herrington – Nov 26, 2018

This conversation includes spoilers for the first four episodes of “My Brilliant Friend.”

Episode 3 of “My Brilliant Friend” opens with two new actresses playing Lenù (Margherita Mazzucco) and Lila (Gaia Girace), who are now teenagers. The girls’ lives are also diverging in new ways: Lenù is heading to a classical high school in Naples; Lila is working with her brother in her father’s shoe repair store. But that doesn’t mean they are any less competitive, and puberty brings new ways for Lenù to measure herself against her old friend. Meanwhile, tensions mount as a new generation of men vie for power in the neighborhood along battle lines drawn by their parents.

Once a week, over the four weeks the series airs on HBO, we are gathering a rotating group of Elena Ferrante fans from across The New York Times newsroom to discuss the show. You can read our discussion of the first two episodes here.

This week, Nicole Herrington and Alicia DeSantis, editors on the Culture desk, and Gal Beckerman, an editor on the Books desk, jump into Episodes 3 and 4.

GAL BECKERMAN As the third episode opens, we get a time jump that moves Lenù and Lila into their teenage years of burgeoning sexual awareness and acne trouble. I was impressed with how seamless the transition was between the child and teenage actresses who play the girls, and especially the opening, which smartly and swiftly uses a dream sequence to move it all forward. But there were other ways that the show, in its design choices, signaled the other big transition, a shift in perspective from the parent’s world to the children’s. Same streets, but not so drab and gray. There were pops of color. A bit more life and possibility in a passing pastel pink dress. Part of this was the move from the 1940s into the postwar boom of the 1950s, but it also gave the visceral sense of youth emerging into their own, claiming the neighborhood.

Vanity Fair: My Brilliant Friend: A Couple of Parties

Posted on November 28, 2018 by admin2

In the strongest episode yet, Elena watches Lila become the neighborhood’s singular force of change—from a birthday party to New Year’s Eve.

On Vanity Fair

Sonia Saraya – Nov 26, 2018

We’ll be recapping each episode of My Brilliant Friend. This recap is written by someone who has read (and loved) the original books, but there will be no spoilers for future plot points. New episodes are airing Sunday and Monday nights, through December 10.

The difference between last night’s episode and this one is so marked it’s like night and day: Where “Metamorphoses” was trapped inside the neighborhood, “La Smarginatura” starts outside of it, with Elena (Margherita Mazzucco) falling under the spell of the glittering waters of the ocean. “Smarginatura” is the term Lila (Gaia Girace) offers for a feeling that first hits her at the end of this episode, and later recurs throughout her life—“dissolving margins,” as it’s translated in the books. I love that the word in Italian (or is it dialect?) nearly has the word “smear” in it; that feels like a more powerful, and more uncomfortable, word than “dissolve.”

Lila describes this feeling as a profoundly unsettling one, but—as is clear in both the book and the show—it’s one that stems from her extraordinary power. Lila can see the shifting edges of the world around her, because she’s smearing those divisions herself—between the poor kids and the rich ones, the haves and have-nots, the men and the women, the murderer and the victim. This whole episode is one of dissolving edges. I ended my last recap lamenting how little joy was depicted in the show, and this episode was like a rejoinder: Two different parties, a trip to the sea, fireworks, dancing, and the growing solidarity of the young people in the neighborhood. Something vital is seeping into the community—and maybe, something is seeping out, too.

Bustle: For The Girls In ‘My Brilliant Friend,’ Puberty, Sex & Violence Are All The Same Thing

Posted on November 28, 2018 by admin2

On Bustle

Rebecca Patton – Nov 27, 2018

Spoilers ahead for My Brilliant Friend Episodes 3 and 4 Getting your period for the first time can be terrifying, but it’s doubly so for Elena Greco (Margherita Mazzucco) on HBO’s My Brilliant Friend. In the third episode, which aired on Sunday, Nov. 25, the young Greco notices she’s bleeding. She doesn’t go to her mother, with whom she has a complicated relationship, but instead walks across their neighborhood courtyard, a blood stain visible through her skirt. “I hurt myself between my legs,” Elena, affectionately called Lenu, says once she finds her best friend (and sometimes nemesis) Lila (Gaia Girace). That she first believes her period is somehow her fault is just one telling example of how violent puberty is for the young women of My Brilliant Friend. It’s treated not as a normal event that everyone goes through, but something to be feared, especially because of the unwanted male attention that comes with it.

Lila hasn’t gotten her period yet and has no idea what Lenu’s talking about. However, Carmela (Francesca Pezzella) explains that “Aunt Flo has paid her a visit.” Lila, mad that she doesn’t have her period yet, says they’re disgusting and that anyone who gets them is disgusting, too. Even Mrs. Greco seems to imply that periods are shameful, telling her daughter that she needs to pin her pads securely to her underwear because if they fall out, it could be “really embarrassing” for her. Not because it’s a pain to wash out, or messy, but that it’s sure to encourage bullying wherever she ends up.

The Guardian: The brilliance of My Brilliant Friend: this series gives us female lives in full

Posted on November 28, 2018 by admin2

The TV version of Elena Ferrante’s great novel is faithful to the relationship at the book’s heart. And that feels revolutionary

On The Guardian

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett – Nov 27, 2018

It’s always high-stakes viewing when a book you love is transferred to the screen. The world of the novel, vividly imagined, can feel flat and jarring when it’s beamed into being from another person’s brain. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be,” you think, because although the adored writer has sketched the outlines, someone else has art-directed it, colouring it in – more often than not in the wrong shades.

This is precisely what I worried would happen in the TV adaptation of My Brilliant Friend, the first novel in Elena Ferrante’s fiercely loved and lauded Neapolitan Quartet. How could anyone possibly succeed in translating such a vividly conjured setting and group of characters as the “neighbourhood” and its inhabitants to the screen?

And yet, they have done it. My Brilliant Friend aired last week on Sky Atlantic. A co-production between HBO and Italy’s Rai Fiction and Timvision, the whole thing is in a mixture of Italian and the Neapolitan dialect spoken in “the neighbourhood”, for which even Italian viewers need subtitles. And it’s brilliant. It succeeds entirely in bringing the world so many readers know to life – which is perhaps as much of a testament to the talents of Ferrante, who acted as consultant, as it is to the producers.

Refinery 29: Behold, A Book For Everyone On Your Holiday List

Posted on November 28, 2018 by admin2

On Refinery 29

Elena Nicolaou – Nov 27, 2018

If you ask us, books make for the ideal holiday gift. On a practical level, books are the easiest shape to wrap (Team Rectangle!). More importantly, there aren’t many better feelings than knowing someone has scoured shelves and chosen something specifically for you.

That said, the whole “shelf scouring” process can be downright daunting, especially if you’re not keeping up with the New York Times Book Review section each week. Countless incredible books have come out in 2018 alone.

We’re here to help you wade through the best offerings of 2018 and the recent years. There’s a book out there for every kind of personality, and every kind of friend. Here are our picks.

Romper: Is ‘My Brilliant Friend’ Based On A True Story? The HBO Show Is Inspired By A Beautiful Italian Novel Of The Sam Name

Posted on November 28, 2018 by admin2

On Romper

Becca Bleznak – Nov 27, 2018

Currently airing on HBO, miniseries My Brilliant Friend is based on a book series from writer Elena Ferrante. The quartet, known as the Neapolitan Novels, follows two girls growing up in Naples, Italy during the 20th century. The protagonist, Elena, shares the ups and downs of her friendship with Lila over many years. There’s an obvious connection to draw here from the name of the author and that of the narrator. So is My Brilliant Friend based on a true story?

The short answer is that it’s impossible to know for sure. That’s because Elena Ferrante is actually a pseudonym. The true identity of the woman behind the name (and it’s almost certainly a woman) has been debated for many years. In 2016, one Italian reporter claimed to have unearthed the real Ferrante, a woman named Anita Raja. Raja denied her involvement, and the majority of the internet, including Ferrante’s passionate fans, angrily shot back at the reporter for trying to “out” the author, protecting her right to remain anonymous.

However, she isn’t entirely a mystery. What we do know is that Elena Ferrante is really from Naples. Though famously private, she does grant email interviews to the occasional media outlet. Speaking with Elissa Schappell for Vanity Fair in 2015, following the release of fourth novel in the series, the author indicates that the friendship in the book is based on a real one, though most likely not her own.

My Brilliant Friend director and writer Saverio Costanzo, who is responsible for adapting the novel for the small screen, corresponded with Ferrante for years before the project was even in development. In fact, he was chosen by the author herself to adapt My Brilliant Friend. Key to the adaptation was the characters themselves: The unreliable narrator, picking apart her childhood self, and her frenemy, who is so much more than that word can truly encapsulate, as Lenù (Elena’s nickname) who simultaneously admires and admonishes Lila.

The Washington Post: Current foreign fiction has found new U.S. readers. 9/11 is part of the reason.

Posted on November 28, 2018 by admin2

Translation isn’t just for Tolstoy anymore. Works like Elena Ferrante’s now vault into the American mainstream.

On The Washington Post

Liesl Shillinger – Nov 21, 2018

A few months into the Iraq War, three American women founded a magazine called Words Without Borders. They hoped to create “an antidote to xenophobia and nationalism” by publishing foreign literature in translation. To that end, they wanted to share the voices of contemporary writers from the countries President George W. Bush had recently called the “axis of evil” — Iran, Iraq and North Korea — for English-language readers.

North Korea, a “completely closed” country, was the trickiest to comb for fiction, recalled Samantha Schnee, a translator of Spanish literature, who began the magazine with Alane Mason, an editor at Norton, and Dedi Felman, an editor at Oxford University Press.“The only writing we could get was writing from the North Koreans’ own literary journals, which they had in their New York office at the United Nations.” An intern was dispatched to the United Nations for reconnaissance. “She camped outside their office for two days,” Schnee said. “Finally, someone came out and said, ‘What do you want?’ And she said, ‘I just want your literary magazines.’ ” The North Koreans handed them over.

Since 2003, Words Without Borders has published literary translations online by more than 2,200 writers from 134 countries. Another translation publisher, Archipelago Books, opened that year in Brooklyn. More independent presses devoted to international literature followed: Europa Editions, in 2005; Open Letter Books, in 2008; New Vessel Press, in 2012; and a dozen others. Today, literary translation, once the province of monuments of the past, guarded by eminent sages, has leaped from dusty library stacks into the contemporary mainstream: Only last Sunday, a novel from Italy, “My Brilliant Friend,” written by Elena Ferrante this decade and translated into English by Ann Goldstein within a year of its emergence, premiered on HBO as a lustrous, fully realized television miniseries. Propelling the remarkable transformation of this literary landscape? Among other factors, Sept. 11 and its aftermath, with a powerful boost from digital technology. Translation wasn’t just for Tolstoy and Goethe anymore. New wars disturbed the peace.

Vanity Fair: My Brilliant Friend: The Puberty Episode

Posted on November 28, 2018 by admin2

Episode 3 is a time of transition: Elena starts middle school and her period, while Lila is distant, immersed in secretive affairs. The Solara brothers have a new car. And the neighborhood library throws a little party.

On Vanity Fair

Sonia Saraya – Nov 25, 2018

In the three hours of My Brilliant Friend we’ve seen so far, we have left the neighborhood but once. Last week there was the foray outside of the tunnel, which drew young Elena (Elisa del Genio) and Lila (Ludovica Nasti) a mile or two away from where they grew up. This hour, “The Metamorphoses,” once again takes place entirely within the neighborhood. While watching it, I found myself wishing that My Brilliant Friend had a more visually interesting way of depicting the barren, empty promise of the neighborhood—even though the featureless buildings and spare color palette are such an effective communication of joyless life.

The first two developments of this episode are the aftereffects of inevitable puberty. Now a teenager played by Margherita Mazzucco, Elena’s first period stains her skirt without her knowledge, and while she’s looking for Lila for help, the whole town sees the telltale blood on the back of her skirt. Meanwhile, Ada Cappuccio (Ulrike Migliaresi), targeted for wearing lipstick while poor, is manhandled into the back of the Solara brothers’ new car and returned, rumpled and smeared. They make for an evocative pair of new dangers, both marked by a blotch of crimson in the otherwise dreary blues, browns, and grays of the neighborhood.

AV/TV Club: My Brilliant Friend runs headlong into its teen years

Posted on November 28, 2018 by admin2

Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Sunday, November 25. All times are Eastern.

On AV/TV Club

Allison Shoemaker – Nov 25, 2018

My Brilliant Friend (HBO, 9 p.m.): My Brilliant Friend is real damn good. Perhaps unsurprising, given the source material, but not all adaptations are created equal. While remaining determinedly faithful to Elena Ferrante’s source material, director Saverio Costanzo somehow creates something utterly cinematic, as his textured, thoughtful worldbuilding makes Naples feel reachable, immediate. One could be forgiven for feeling the need to wash the dust from their shoes or the sweat from their face after spending an hour in the company of Lila and Lenú, and part of that success must be credited to Elisa Del Genio and Ludovica Nasti, the two young actors bringing those unforgettable girls to life.

And now they’re done. Thanks, kids. Bring on the teens.

Lest you fear that the appearance of Gaia Girace and Margherita Mazzucco will mark a drop in the show’s potency and power, let us reassure you, the slightly older Lenú and Lila are every bit as compelling as their predecessors. If you liked the original version, you’ll also dig the remix. Allison Shoemaker has blown the dust off her copy of Little Women and stands ready to be dazzled by both brilliant friends.

Fast Company: My Brilliant Friend director talks about bringing Elena Ferrante’s beloved novel to life for HBO

Posted on November 28, 2018 by admin2

Italian director Saverio Costanzo spoke with Fast Company about the challenge of adapting the first novel in the Neapolitan series (as a man, no less).

On Fast Company

Nicole Laporte – 23 Nov, 2018

In 2007, Italian director Saverio Costanzo wrote to the publisher of Elena Ferrante’s novella The Lost Daughter and asked if he could option the film rights. The story had captured the filmmaker’s attention because of the way it mined a simple plot—a middle-aged professor vacationing at the beach takes a young girl’s doll—for maximum emotional and psychological effect. The publisher and Ferrante (who writes under a pseudonym and is famously reclusive) granted Costanzo his wish with one condition: He had six months to come up with an adaptation that pleased all parties. Costanzo accepted the challenge. But after six months of trying, and failing, to bring the story to life for the big screen, he abandoned the project.

“I was not able to find a common theme to transpose the novel into a film,” he told Fast Company via email.

But Costanzo made an impression on Ferrante, and nearly a decade later, the author herself suggested that Costanzo direct the adaptation of My Brilliant Friend, the first novel in her four-part Neapolitan series that has sold more than 10 million copies in 40 countries. Costanzo said yes. “I am certainly more mature and more aware than I was back then,” he said.

Continue reading →

Bustle: After Watching ‘My Brilliant Friend’ On HBO, Read These 15 Books

Posted on November 28, 2018 by admin2

On Bustle

Kristian Wilson – Nov 27, 2018

The first of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels made its screen debut this month when My Brilliant Friend hit the airwaves as an HBO miniseries. If you can’t get enough of Elena and Lila, but you’ve devoured both the HBO episodes and Ferrante’s novels, I’ve got 15 books for you to read after My Brilliant Friend leaves you in the lurch.

Written by the mysterious, pseudonymous author Elena Ferrante, the Neapolitan novels center on Elena and Lila: two girls who form a lifelong friendship as children in 1950s Naples. The series concluded in 2015 with its fourth installment, The Story of the Lost Child, which brings Elena and Lila’s relationship into the present day. My Brilliant Friend and the other Neapolitan novels deal with themes of growing up poor, girlhood, mid-20th century life and politics, automation, feminist awakenings, and sexuality.

The 15 books on the list below are perfect for My Brilliant Friend fans. Not only do they share thematic elements with the Neapolitan novels, but these books are also poignant, feminist reads that even readers who have never heard of Elena Ferrante may enjoy. Check out my recommendations below, and share your favorite My Brilliant Friend readalikes with me on Twitter!

BBC’s Radio 4 Saturday Review: Macbeth at The Globe, The Workshop, My Brilliant Friend, Uwe Johnson, Penny Woolcock

Posted on November 27, 2018 by admin2

On BBC Radio 4

Tom Sutcliffe’s guests are Don Guttenplan, Kathryn Hughes and Jenny McCartney. The producer is Oliver Jones

Starting from minute 20:40

Italian author Elena Ferrante’s multi-million selling, globally-successful novels are coming to the TV. My Brilliant Friend has been adapted and directed by Saverio Costanzo: a man! Some avid fans have wondered aloud whether such a female-centric story might be beyond his capabilities.

Irish Sunday Indipendent: Television: Child stars dazzle in absorbing coming-of-age Neapolitan saga

Posted on November 27, 2018 by admin2

On Irish Sunday Indipendent

John Boland – Nov 25, 2018

The first episode of My Brilliant Friend (Sky Atlantic) offered convincing proof that you can enjoy the televising of a novel without knowing much, if anything, about where it came from.

Mind you, it’s been hard to avoid ongoing media speculation about the real identity of the book’s enigmatic pseudonymous author, Elena Ferrante, but all I knew about the bestselling and much-acclaimed novel itself was that it concerned the friendship of two young girls in the downtrodden Naples of the 1950s and that three succeeding novels have followed their lives into adulthood and beyond.

In this adaptation (with Ferrante credited as co-scriptwriter), we first meet Lenu in her sixties as she’s being informed that her lifelong friend Lila has gone missing – and reacting coldly to the news. Then it’s back to the Naples of 50 years earlier and the first meeting of the two schoolgirls in their often violent neighbourhood of tenement apartments.

This is all beautifully evoked by director Saverio Costanzo (the raucous classroom scenes are reminiscent of those in Fellini’s Amarcord), though he was fortunate to have at his disposal two extraordinary child actors in Elisa del Genio as the gravely watchful Lenu and Ludovica Nasti as her fiery little genius friend Lila.

These two command every scene, and the camera pays due attention to their every reaction, though the warring adults around them are vividly realised, too, and there’s a real sense of how children absorb and come to terms with the incomprehensible and often frightening idiocies of grown-up behaviour.

With seven episodes to go (and with the succeeding novels being adapted, too), this is an ambitious project that promises to explore social history and gender issues as well as the ongoing story of an intense if volatile friendship. If the opening instalment is anything to go by, it should be truly absorbing.

Stylist: Why Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend will be your new TV obsession this winter

Posted on November 27, 2018 by admin2

The new TV adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend is all we’d hoped for and more.

On Stylist

Anna Fielding – Nov 21, 2018

Two girls play with dolls by a grate. The small, dark, furious one flings her friend’s doll into the basement. Not to be outdone, the blonde child sends the other doll down too. The girls look at each other. In trying to be bold, they’ve both lost something they care for. They are bonded and they have hurt each other.

The new TV adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend recreates that key scene just as you imagined. And what a relief. When books are as well-loved as Ferrante’s four Neapolitan Novels (with over 10 million copies sold), emotions run high. Although it started on 19 November,Stylist has been lucky enough to get a look at the first four episodes – here’s why you should tune in:

It stays incredibly close to the book

Yes, sometimes an adaptation will stray from the text and be all the more amazing (see The Handmaid’s Tale and Killing Eve), but we don’t think we could’ve borne major changes in this case. Ferrante worked with the director, Saverio Costanzo, and even supplied dialogue. He didn’t meet her though; the famously reclusive writer did it all over email.

The cast is perfect

The production company had a tough job. Not only did the actors need to look the part, the decision to have most of the dialogue in Fifties-era Neapolitan dialect made the search harder. They saw 500 adults and 9,000 children. But the end result was worth it.