“My Brilliant Friend” is to close the book about Elena and Lila’s journey. The Italian- and Neapolitan-language TV series has been renewed for a fourth and final season by co-producers HBO and RAI.
“My Brilliant Friend” is based on the acclaimed “Neapolitan Novels” series with four books by Italian author Elena Ferrante, and follows two best friends, Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo, who grew up in a poor Naples neighborhood in 1950 ‘ erne. As the smart but shy Elena continues her education and eventually rises up into the wealthy elite, the outspoken Lila is denied schooling by her family and fights her way through a violent marriage. The show, named after the first novel in Ferrante’s series, has adapted each book into an eight-episode season, with the fourth season to adapt the final part, “The Story of the Lost Child”.
The first three seasons of “My Brilliant Friend” have Margherita Mazzucco and Gaia Girace starring Elena and Lila, with Elisa Del Genio and Ludovica Nasti playing the characters as younger children in the first season. In Season 4, the role of Elena will be portrayed by Alba Rohrwacher, who has delivered the narrative as an older version of the character looking back on his life throughout the series. Casting for the older version of Lila has not yet been announced.
“My Brilliant Friend” was created by Saverio Costanzo. The show is produced by Lorenzo Mieli for Fremantle Italy, The Apartment and Wildside, and by Domenico Procacci for Fandango, in collaboration with Rai Fiction and HBO Entertainment. Ferrante, Francesco Piccolo, Laura Paolucci and Saverio Costanzo are the credited authors for the story and script of the series. Paolo Sorrentino and Jennifer Schuur act as executive producers, and the series is distributed internationally by Fremantle in collaboration with RAI Com.
Since its 2018 premiere, “My Brilliant Friend” has received critical acclaim for its authorship, instruction, and performance of the two lead roles. In its review of the second season, Variety Chief TV critic Caroline Framke called the show “an unusually thought-provoking, insightful series that takes teenage girls and women’s interiors seriously while immersing its audience in a specific culture that nonetheless feels overly painfully familiar.”
The third season of “My Brilliant Friend”, subtitled “Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay”, debuted on HBO and Italy’s RAI 1 last month.