New faces, still brilliant: the final season of 'My Brilliant Friend'

Adulthood sees new actors take on the roles of Elena and Lila, and 'My Brilliant Friend' doesn’t skip a beat.

Irene Maiorino and Alba Rohrwacher in 'My Brilliant Friend'. Credit: RAI

— If you haven't seen the first three seasons of 'My Brilliant Friend', we suggest heading to

and watching there before reading on —

Lenù and Lila are all grown up.

Over three seasons of the adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet of novels, we’ve followed Elena 'Lenù' Greco and Raffaella 'Lila' Cerullo from their childhood in 1950s Naples to their struggles at school and in love, through Lila’s loveless marriage and Lenù’s expanding horizons, to the social changes sweeping Italy in the 1970s that provide new opportunities (and old ones in different guises) for both of them.

Both women have seen a lot of changes, with more to come. But season four opens with the biggest one yet: for the first time since season one, new actors have stepped into the roles of Lenù and Lila.

It’s a transition whose time has come. Margherita Mazzucco and Gaia Girace have been playing Lenù and Lila since the characters were teenagers. Now the characters are women in their thirties (the first episode alone has a montage that moves things forward a year and a half) with children of their own. Their lives are moving into yet another stage, and change is only natural.

As Lenù, Alba Rohrwacher made a brief apperance at the end of last season. Now she’s in the role full time, with a performance that builds on what’s been established while adding something new. At this stage of her life Lenù is settled in her professional career. She might have her doubts about how things are going, but she’s become an established author. It’s the personal side of life where things are less than stable: her affair with Nino (now played by Fabrizio Gifuni) is a whirlwind of passion, but his wife is still firmly in his life. As for her husband Pietro (now played by Pier Giorgio Bellocchio) and their daughters, they’re important too… when she finds the time for them.

Alba Rohrwacher as Lenù. Credit: RIA

It's a tricky role to play. As the series begins Lenù is having a passionate affair, struggling to keep her family (somewhat) together, and forging ahead with her writing career – and that’s just in the first couple of episodes. One scene she’s frolicking with her lover, the next her family are heaping scorn on her, then she’s back with Nino.

Rohrwacher effortlessly switches between an almost steely firmness and a fragile vulnerability in the role, giving us a Lenù determined to make things work even when she knows the personal cost will be hard to bear. She’s fiery and passionate, with a softer side that humanises her. Even when her life seems ready to fly apart and her relationships are in tatters (things definitely aren’t getting any easier with her mother), Rohrwacher plays Lenù as someone with the confidence that she can make it all work. Somehow.

It takes a little while for Lila to turn up in the first episode – she’s kept under wraps for much of the length, even as messages and missed phone calls let us know that there’s something she urgently needs to tell her oldest, closest friend. But when she does arrive, there’s no mistaking her: if you were asked to visualise a grown-up version of Girace in the role, you couldn’t do better than Irene Maiorino.

Irene Maiorino as Lila. Credit: RAI

As the half of the duo who’s stayed close to the neighbourhood they grew up in, she’s found her strength there. When Lenù reconnects with her, she’s secure, stable and settled – all things Lenù can only dream of. This control shines through in Maiorino’s performance; it’s easy to believe her Lila runs the neighbourhood like a Mafia don, always focused and sharp. There’s softer moments with Lenù, but they’re always balanced on a knife-edge. There’s so much history and feeling between them that tugging on a thread could bring almost anything to the surface.

They might be new to the series, but Rohrwacher and Maiorino don’t falter when it comes to conveying the depth of Lenù and Lila’s connection. Whether it’s the things that unite them, like their growing success in their respective fields (and the demands that success places on them) or the ways they’ve grown apart (like their differing attitudes to motherhood), there’s a bond between them that’s both vigorous and fragile.

We’ve always known, right from the beginning of the series, that their friendship would come to an end. Now more than ever, it’s hard to imagine anything that could tear them apart.

All four seasons of My Brilliant Friend are now streaming at SBS On Demand: