& # 39; Genial Friend & # 39 ;, what you need to know

Posted on: 11/28/2018 11:59

Departure in force. Crazy social. Rai Uno satisfied. The & # 39; Genial Friend-Mania & # 39; exploded. The first two episodes of the series of events from the bestseller's best-selling Elena Ferrante – broadcast at first sight every Tuesday from November 27, directed by Saverio Costanzo – have indeed attracted more than 7 million viewers and a market share of 29.3%, making it the show the most watched prime time.

This data is accompanied by the satisfaction of the leaders of Viale Mazzini, who speak of "extraordinary success" which "represents for Rai and his public service mission a source of deep pride," said Rai's CEO, Fabrizio Salini. An advance on what would have been, in terms of success, had already reached the 75th Venice Film Festival where the public and the critics had enjoyed the first two episodes aired on Rai.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW – Taken from the mysterious writer 's bestseller, the narrative tells the story of Elena and Lila' s friendship during a journey that begins since childhood and arrives at the Adulthood. a complex friendship in which understanding, understanding and complicity coexist with hatred, rivalry and jealousy. In the background, the history and changes of Italy from the 50s to today.

THE LITERARY CASE – The daughter of a global editorial case, "The bright friend" is the series of events of the first volume of Ferrante's quadrilogy, which has sold to millions of copies around the world whole. The story begins in Italy today with the mysterious disappearance of Lila: she then pushes her friend Elena to trace the story that, after the Second World War, united them in a district of Naples.

IL CAST – More than 150 actors and 5000 extras on stage. The cast of the series lasted eight months, during which more than 8,000 children and 500 adults from all over Campania were tested: professional and non-professional actors, children and adolescents sought in schools in all districts. Elisa Del Genio and Ludovica Nasti interpret Elena and Lila as children; while Elena and Lila in adolescence have the faces of Margherita Mazzucco and Gaia Girace.

THE DIRECTOR – According to Saverio Costanzo (whose first feature film, Private, won the Golden Leopard in 2004 and the Best Actor Award at the Locarno International Film Festival, which was eventually sold in more than 25 countries), the transposition of the book to the television "tries to restore to the spectators the big scenes of the novel of Elena Ferrante".

The direction of Costanzo, like the voice of history, is a kind of first person who accompanies the spectator in the most unspeakable thoughts of the protagonist; a voice that links the time of history with the same anarchic and sentimental freedom of the pages of a newspaper.

CHARACTERS –
Lila Cerullo She is a curious and intelligent girl, able to read the world around her before and better than others. Raffaella (his real name) is volcanic and always responds. Between her and Elena is born a strong friendship in which it is sometimes difficult to separate affection and envy: the secret competition that opposes them pushes them to improve to try to outdo themselves. Unfortunately, unlike Elena, Lila can not persuade her family to continue her studies and leave school. He begins to work and his body is dry and angular, once he has become a teenager, flourishes and makes him the most courted girl in the neighborhood.

Elena Greco – She was born in August 1944 in Naples: she is a blonde girl, diligent and very shy. Already a child, however, she feels alienated at the parish where she was born and her greatest fear is to become like her mother, able to express herself only in dialect. Elena loves school and tries to cling to everything that can distance her from that future that already seems written: probably for that reason, since she's a kid, she's trying something for Nino Sarratore, a quiet and intelligent boy who seems so different from Rione's other children. But it's the meeting with Lila, who lives in the building in front of her, who changes her life.

THE FIRST 2 EPISODES –
"The dolls": when Lila seems to have lost track, Elena turns on the computer and begins to write the story of their friendship. Raffaella Cerullo, whom she always called Lila, met her in grade one in 1950. Elena is blonde and shy, Lila is dark and volcanic. Although very different, the two best players in the clbad are attracted to each other and start playing together in the Neapolitan region where they grew up. An agglomeration of buildings and dust, a Naples without sea in which Don Achilles commands, a man who scares everyone. Not for Lila, though: she is convinced that it is he who stole the dolls with which they play and, holding Elena by the hand, decides to face the stairs leading to Don Achille's house. It is that day that Elena and Lila, confronted with fear, build their friendship.

"L & # 39; money": Elena and Lila love to read and decide that writers will be great. However, their families, poor and of poor culture, do not intend to have them studied. After much discussion, Elena manages to convince her parents to send her to college, while Lila is forced to drop out of school. With the money received from don Achilles – in an arrogant attempt to compensate the girls for the loss of the dolls, before being killed – Elena and Lila buy "Little Women". Read it and reread it when they fall in love and decide that when they are tall they will write a book together.