The Prodigious Friend: Season 3 Is Coming To France 3.

After the broadcast of the first two seasons of "L'Amie prodigieuse" on France 2, season 3 is coming to France 3 starting from Thursday, July 27, 2023. This series is a faithful, dark, and intimate adaptation of the four-novel saga by Elena Ferrante. Here are 5 good reasons to absolutely watch it.

1- This is the adaptation of an international best-seller.

Season 3 of The Brilliant Friend will illuminate your summer evenings on France 3 starting Thursday, July 27, 2023.

This Italian-American series is an adaptation of a 4-volume novel saga that has made a big impact since its publication in 2011: "The Brilliant Friend" ("L'amica geniale" in Italian).

This tetralogy, which has sold 12 million copies worldwide, is the work of an enigmatic Italian novelist, Elena Ferrante, whose true identity remains unknown.

Fans of Elena Ferrante's saga can rejoice: after being translated into 42 languages, this literary success will be fully adapted for the small screen.

This summer, France 3 offers us the opportunity to discover season 3 of this series, which consists of 8 episodes following the chronology of the third volume of the literary saga. You will find Lila and Elena, now adults, in Italy during the 1970s.

2- It's a beautiful story of friendship.

The Neapolitan Novels retraces the story of Lila and Elena, two friends as rivalrous as they are accomplices, over about sixty years.

In the first book adapted in season 1, the two girls grow up in a poor neighborhood in Naples, in the aftermath of World War II. The first eight episodes tell the birth of the friendship between Lila (Ludovica Nasti) and Elena (Elisa Del Genio) and their respective journeys until they turn 15.

Their families are poor and, although they are talented at school, their parents do not intend for them to pursue further education. Lila, the gifted one, is forced to drop out of school to work with her father and brother in their shoemaking shop.

Elena, on the other hand, is supported by her teacher, who convinces her parents to send her to middle school and then high school.
The trailer for season 1, below, gives you a glimpse of this unbreakable friendship:

3- The TV series is absolutely faithful to the books.

The die-hard fans of this literary saga can rest assured: the TV series L'Amie prodigieuse, co-produced by RAI and HBO, demonstrates absolute faithfulness to the original text.

It must be said that the mysterious novelist Elena Ferrante participated in the writing of this television adaptation.

At first glance, adapting this first-person narrative for television was a daunting challenge: the saga features dozens of protagonists that are followed from Naples to Turin, spanning from the 1950s to the 2010s!

And yet, this challenge was brilliantly met by director Saverio Costanzo (who also adapted The Solitude of Prime Numbers into a film).

The production spared no expense in recreating the impoverished Naples where the two heroines grow up: the brutalist apartment blocks, the only horizon of their universe, were reconstructed on a 20,000 m2 set, which also included 14 buildings, including a church and a tunnel! This microcosm was filled with period objects... even toilet paper made from newspaper pages!

The high-quality historical reconstruction should therefore captivate both Elena Ferrante's readers and viewers who have not read the books.

4- The casting is prodigious.

To embody on screen two unforgettable heroines from novels, it was necessary to find stunning actresses. The television adaptation required no less than 8 months of casting. In total, 150 actors and 5000 extras were recruited.

But above all, more than 13,000 children and teenagers, professional or amateur actors, were auditioned to find the young heroes, especially the two little girls and the two teenage girls who portray Lila and Elena at different ages.

This amazing quartet (Elisa Del Genio, Ludovica Nasti, Gaia Girace, and Margherita Mazzucco) is made up of young talents who had never acted in their lives.

5- The story will captivate you.

The Neapolitan Novels is a story that will not leave any viewer indifferent: in addition to the friendship between two women, this saga also depicts a harsh and violent social fresco. Throughout her work, Elena Ferrante indeed questions the place of women in both past and present society.

Do not be put off by the initial slowness of this narrative. The series will then captivate you with its touching characters, superb production, and the intense and complex relationship that unites Lila and Elena.

Season 3, to be discovered from Thursday, July 27, 2023, gains depth as clashes between communists and fascists rage on in the context of the Cold War. The series, which always highlights the emotions of its two heroines, also expresses the desire for women's emancipation in the face of patriarchy.