Here's an interesting case of a show I really loved, or at least tell myself I loved, that I also could never seem to watch for more than like 30 or 40 minutes at a time. (And the episodes are an hour long each.) It's based on the super-popular book of the same name by anonymous Italian author Elena Ferrante; the book and its three sequels were just all the rage five years ago, and as usual, I'm late enough to the party to catch the screen adaptation before hitting the books.
The show is actually a joint production between HBO and two Italian networks. It takes place in Naples in the 1950s and is shot entirely on location and in Italian - or apparently, in some vulgar Neapolitan dialect of Italian that my pretty-fluent-in-Italian mother-in-law couldn't even understand. Regardless, it's subtitled, and I can't think of another show in HBO's long and storied history that wasn't shot in English - this is quite a risk!
But it's worth it. HBO is treating this adaptation with the utmost care and honoring its pedigree. My understanding is that the eight-episode first season is as "dutiful" an adaptation as you can make from a 350-page book. Allegedly the casting alone took eight months, and it's kind of easy to see why:
In the front are the two actresses who play the child versions of main characters Elena and Lila, respectively. In the back are the two actresses who play the teenage versions of the characters, obviously in reverse order. These aren't pairs of sisters, or even cousins, or anything - just two nearly perfectly matched sets of young actors fluent in the protected UNESCO language of Neapolitan. I've never read the books, but it's easy to see how perfect this casting is if you watch, like, two or three episodes. Elena, the fairer-skinned one, is the passive one, the observer, the wallflower of sorts who's consistently impressed and intimidated by Lila; Lila's the fiery one, the rebellious one, the beautiful one, the one who threatens to kill someone multiple times.
The main story of both the books and the show is about their friendship and all the subtle complexities of how their relationship changes and strengthens and weakens over time. Elena is consistently impressed by Lila's intelligence (Lila's the titular "brilliant friend") and rebellious streak as a child, and years later she's intimidated by Lila's beauty, her ease with relationships, and her sexual maturity. Lila's a more complicated and mysterious character, given that the story is told from Elena's perspective, but it's easy to surmise that Lila is jealous of Elena's life and opportunities. Both girls come from poor families in post-war Naples, but Elena's father is supportive enough to pay for her to go to high school, whereas Lila's more abusive father just wants her to help out in his shoe shop once she's all of twelve or so.
So far, then, this seems to be a classic case of each girl being at least a little envious of what the other has; Elena covets Lila's brains, personality, and beauty, whereas in Lila's eyes, Elena is increasingly the only connection to a world outside of the shitty mob-ruled neighborhood she might never escape. This only scratches at the surface of their relationship of course, and of the overall quality of the show and how thoroughly it transports you to Italy in the 1950s.
In short, it's a fascinating watch and as much as I respect and admire the show, what it makes me want to do most is read the books.
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