HBO and Radiotelevisione Italiana (Rai) announced that — as expected — My Brilliant Friend has been renewed for a fourth season, which will be the last. The confirmation left fans happy as they follow the emotional and sometimes violent story of Lenù and Lila, Elena Greco and Raffaella Cerullo, a 60-year-old friendship since their childhood in the poverty of Naples after the Second World War: this is how the cycle is completed as in the Dos Amigas saga. Composed of four novels, Elena Ferrante's story became a world best seller.
“When we decided to bring to the screen the masterpiece that is Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet, we knew that Elena and Lila's story needed to be told in its entirety,” said Francesca Orsi, Executive Vice President of Programming at HBO, as she made the announcement together with Maria Pia Ammirati, head of Rai's Drama.
“It's both electrifying and bittersweet to embark on this fourth and final season,” he added. “We have deep gratitude for the entire creative team led by Saverio Costanzo and Lorenzo Mieli, and for the director of season three, Daniele Luchetti. We hope to complete the quartet and we know that The Lost Girl,” he said, referring to the title of the fourth book, will give the series a close with the same emotion, the same intimacy and the same epic narrative that has defined Lenù and Lila's journey from the beginning.”
Like the Neapolitan Quartet, each season of the series—currently available on HBO Max—has corresponded to a book: the first, to The Stupid Friend; the second, to A Bad Name, and the third, which premiered on February 28 and will end on April 18, to The debts of the body.
A novelty of the last season will be the departure of Margherita Mazzucco and Gaia Girace from the leading roles. For now, it has only been confirmed that Alba Rohrwacher — who is the voice of the narrator in all three seasons — will be the major version of Lenù.
“My Brilliant Friend is a value that has demonstrated the success of our partnership with HBO Entertainment, Fandango, Fremantle, The Apartment and Wildside,” Ammirati added of the other producers and distributors participating in the series. “What lies behind this success is the precious opportunity offered by Ferrante's four novels and the realistic, exciting and truly Italian setting that has given life to this adaptation of the friendship between Lila and Lenù.”
For Ammirati, the mixture of the eras that storytelling, the humanity of content and the power of friendship between women is “the engine of the series, and also a showcase to show the creativity and experience of the Italian audiovisual industry”.
Produced by Mieli and Domenico Procacci, with scripts by Ferrante, Costanzo, Francesco Piccolo and Laura Paolucci, My Brilliant Friend will end — if season four is faithful to the fourth book — with Elena separated, moving towards a relationship with her former love, Nino. But after leaving her family, Elena will discover that Nino's wife is pregnant: that fact marks the dramatic beginning of The Lost Girl.
For now, the third season is set in the late 1960s. There is a lot of political effervescence and changes in sexual morality. Although an invisible thread unites these childhood friends, Lenù and Lila have taken very different paths. So different that it would give the impression that they would never cross paths again. However, each in its own place and in its different circumstances, both navigate the same complexities of life: marriage, motherhood, work and desire.
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