Yes, I know this series apparently takes place in the '90s, but it reminded me of the sort of films fashionable in the '70s (and that now seem so cringey and trite), the sort that celebrated Holy Fools, colorful misfits and eccentrics, even downright madmen, because their refusal to conform to polite society served as... blah blah blah... (You know what I'm talking about.)
In the creepy third season of the earlier Ferrante series "My Brilliant Friend" -- and, I assume, in the third volume of the novels -- Elena, the virtuous central character and narrator, turned selfish and cruel, betraying and humiliating her husband, running out on her children, and eagerly embarking on an affair with a suave, preening, repellent young academic -- an affair for which he abandoned his own family. And one had the sense, or at least I had the sense, that Ferrante not only approved of this sort of egocentric "self-realization," but actually endorsed it.
This theme (which also surfaced in Ferrante's "The Lost Daughter") animates "The Lying Life of Adults" from the very first episode. Its teenage heroine is selfish from the start. She's sullen, taciturn, failing at school, and openly ungrateful to her parents, even somewhat disdainful of them, though they coddle her and treat her with affection. In short, unless you have a soft spot for sullen teenagers (or are one yourself), she's fairly disagreeable. But we're clearly expected to care about her.
Worse, she's played by a stiff, unappealing newcomer, Giordana Marengo. One of the many virtues of "My Brilliant Friend" was the casting; all four of the young actresses playing the two friends were superb. No such luck this time. The heroine of "Lying Life" is supposed to be just 15, but she actually looks older than the actress playing her mother.
We're also supposed to care about the heroine's aunt, an angry, foul-mouthed, combative, mentally unbalanced scold whom we're nonetheless encouraged to see as one of those endearingly colorful misfits I mentioned above. And from the moment in Episode 1 when she enters the young heroine's life, you can see exactly where this story is going.
In the creepy third season of the earlier Ferrante series "My Brilliant Friend" -- and, I assume, in the third volume of the novels -- Elena, the virtuous central character and narrator, turned selfish and cruel, betraying and humiliating her husband, running out on her children, and eagerly embarking on an affair with a suave, preening, repellent young academic -- an affair for which he abandoned his own family. And one had the sense, or at least I had the sense, that Ferrante not only approved of this sort of egocentric "self-realization," but actually endorsed it.
This theme (which also surfaced in Ferrante's "The Lost Daughter") animates "The Lying Life of Adults" from the very first episode. Its teenage heroine is selfish from the start. She's sullen, taciturn, failing at school, and openly ungrateful to her parents, even somewhat disdainful of them, though they coddle her and treat her with affection. In short, unless you have a soft spot for sullen teenagers (or are one yourself), she's fairly disagreeable. But we're clearly expected to care about her.
Worse, she's played by a stiff, unappealing newcomer, Giordana Marengo. One of the many virtues of "My Brilliant Friend" was the casting; all four of the young actresses playing the two friends were superb. No such luck this time. The heroine of "Lying Life" is supposed to be just 15, but she actually looks older than the actress playing her mother.
We're also supposed to care about the heroine's aunt, an angry, foul-mouthed, combative, mentally unbalanced scold whom we're nonetheless encouraged to see as one of those endearingly colorful misfits I mentioned above. And from the moment in Episode 1 when she enters the young heroine's life, you can see exactly where this story is going.