Netflix Hops on the Elena Ferrante Bandwagon With Persuasive ‘The Lying Life of Adults’: TV Review

The pseudonymous novelist Elena Ferrante’s appeal to television producers remains as clear as the Tyrrhenian Sea. Sun-kissed Italian locations; prominent female leads, afforded greater agency than the Italian media have traditionally afforded their women; material that’s genre-adjacent, but open to more emotion than genre mechanics typically allow. As HBO’s much-lauded ‘My Brilliant Friend’ — three seasons in, headed for a fourth — has demonstrated, Ferrante’s flinty prose excavates not just time and place, but class and attitudes. That these projects function as deluxe soap is down to the abrasive element of social history salted into their fragrance and colouring: To… Read Full Article