My Brilliant Friend Review: A Masterpiece of Intimacy

My Brilliant Friend is a series that meant more to me after I had finished it than while I was watching it. Based on Elena Ferrante’s novels, it follows the lives of two friends from a working-class neighbourhood of Naples across several decades. It is patient, sometimes uncomfortable, occasionally too slow for my taste — and unusually powerful when considered as one complete four-season journey.

While watching, I sometimes wondered whether certain events really needed so much screen time. By the end, something changed. Silences that had seemed excessive felt meaningful, seemingly uneventful conversations became part of a larger picture, and even a voice-over I had once found intrusive became something I missed. Few series have made me feel so strongly that I had accompanied real people through a substantial part of their lives.

A life cannot be made entirely of extraordinary moments

The series understands a basic truth: lives are built not only from dramatic events but also from ordinary days, slow changes in relationships and decisions whose consequences only become clear years later. The friendship between the protagonists is shaped by affection, rivalry, inequality and the constant temptation to compare oneself with the other.

The unhurried storytelling is therefore a strength, even if it can also be the show’s greatest obstacle. It asks the viewer to notice gradual transformations rather than wait for a major twist at the end of every episode. Some of its finest effects only emerge when you look back on several seasons together.

I wanted to spend longer with them as children

One of my reservations is that childhood passes too quickly. The early episodes establish the neighbourhood, the families, the social divisions and above all the girls’ complicated connection with extraordinary efficiency. The child performers give that relationship a vitality that could easily have sustained a little more screen time.

I do not consider the transition a major structural error, but I would gladly have stayed in that period longer. The foundations laid there matter to everything that happens later.

Adolescence is the heart of the series

For me, the adolescent years are the strongest part of My Brilliant Friend. Questions of class begin to determine real opportunities, relationships become more consequential, and patterns of violence and control grow more visible. What might once have looked like a harmless childhood rivalry starts to shape the women’s futures.

The emotional force of this section also owes a great deal to the time we spend with the same performers. We stop thinking of them simply as actors playing characters; their faces, gestures and ways of moving become part of the people we believe we know.

The cast changes: necessary, but emotionally disruptive

A story covering so many decades inevitably needs to age its characters. I understand the decision to change actors as the narrative moves forward, and it is not a question of the newer performers doing a poor job.

The difficulty is emotional continuity. Having spent so long with particular faces, I needed time to reconnect when they changed. In a series that is almost entirely about personal evolution, that interruption is more noticeable than it would be in a conventional drama. A few small details of physical continuity also stand out precisely because the world around the characters is otherwise recreated with such care.

Naples is as important as any character

One of the show’s greatest achievements is the way its Naples neighbourhood shapes the people who live there. It determines their opportunities, relationships and expectations. Poverty, misogyny, violence and entrenched power are not presented through lectures: they are part of daily life.

That makes the social commentary more effective. We see how two people born close to one another can face very different futures because of their families and circumstances. The historical setting is convincing, but many of the mechanisms it depicts — class inequality, coercion and limits on personal freedom — remain recognisable in different forms today.

The voice-over grew on me

At first I struggled with the narration. At times I felt it explained too much of what the images already conveyed. Gradually, though, I began to hear it less as a commentary track and more as the voice of someone rebuilding her life through memory.

That distinction matters. Remembering is not simply replaying events: we reinterpret them, give new meaning to small details and revise our understanding of the people we used to be. By the final episodes, the voice I had once found heavy-handed had become essential to how I experienced the story.

A slower fourth season that earns its place

I found the final season less immediately powerful than adolescence and some of the earlier adult years. Certain conflicts lack their predecessors’ impact, and the rhythm slows noticeably. Yet perhaps this is appropriate for a story tracing almost an entire lifetime. People age, priorities shift and the events that once seemed capable of changing everything gradually give way to different concerns.

The fourth season gives us the distance needed to understand the preceding three. Even when individual episodes tested my patience, the final shape of the narrative became more moving.

Final verdict: a series that grows in memory

I recommend My Brilliant Friend, with a warning about its deliberate pace. It will not immediately connect with every viewer, and I do not believe every episode or decision works equally well. Childhood could have lasted longer, casting changes require adjustment, and some stretches feel drawn out.

But the recreation of Naples, the performances, the social observation and the experience of watching those two girls become adults add up to something rare. In the end I remembered the people more than the individual plot points. The series does not build a life around big events; it lets big events emerge from a life.

This expanded English review follows my original Spanish analysis of La amiga estupenda, which explores the four seasons in greater detail.

The way this show changes across its four seasons also connects with our discussion of how long great television stories need to be, even though My Brilliant Friend is built around a very different sense of time.

To place this long-running drama alongside other major works of modern television, visit our selection of standout films and series of the 21st century.