My Brilliant Friend is presented in Italian with subtitles. Don’t let that scare you off. Take the journey. Amid the brutality, an intimacy and honesty unlike any other flourishes.

This masterwork from HBO isn’t the sort whose powers depend on the suspense of plot turns. Every chapter is a profoundly moving world unto itself--a stunning achievement whose every moment lives in all the ways that matter in drama.

In each era, the actors create a transfixing yin and yang that keeps the viewer’s rapt focus.

Throughout, we see the world the way the girls see it, knowing what they know. The world seems bigger to them, and thus their emotions always feel bigger, in ways that can make My Brilliant Friend acutely thrilling or devastating. ... This is a great show with a huge heart. Just be prepared for it to break yours every now and then.

Beneath the show’s heavy coats of operatic varnish and prestige-TV enamel, it demonstrates a humble tenderness. In the specifics of its plot and the essence of its tone, the adaptation is faithful, though not slavishly so.

My Brilliant Friend is an impressive effort, a translation of novel to screen that preserves certain of its literary qualities while transmuting others into moving and effective TV.

So many individual pieces are intriguing, and some even prove rewarding over hours of consideration. Still, even the most introspective series doesn’t need to be such a slog.

the innocence, the rawness, the passion, the despair... everything feels honest and yet marvelous, as if we were watching not a TV series, but a pièce (the debt towards the beloved De Filippo is huge). the beauty isn't much in the dialogues (and the voice-over is often irritating, but for a RAI series, hélas, necessary) but in the silences, and the looks of the characters-- in their souls. my brilliant friend has some flaws, of course, but it's TV poetry at its best

Halfway through the season. The depiction of small-town Italian life can be fascinating. But series is average. Hype is not justified. Wonder of people sometimes base their reviews on just one episode (the first one). Will certainly revise review if the last half of the season warrants it.

Honestly, this show is boring, and it becomes worse along the series. What's the point of watching this? Too much hype and poor content.

Disclaimer: I haven't read the novels this show is based on. I wanted to love this show, but i found it dreadfully boring. I watched the entire first season because I hoped it would get better, but it never did. If we're comparing Italian shows, the first season of Gomorrah was far more engaging.

very disappointed. What's all the hype about? I expected a superior refined cinematography, opulent as some of the recent Italian series or at least an intricate character development. This is just a very linear story, lined with tropes, passing as realistic art....devoid of any charm and poetry with very simplistic one-sided characters. I can only imagine how distraught the original writer must feel of this adaptation. If you want Italian realism of the post-world area, better rewatch Rocco and his brothers or any other Visconti or De Sica or Rosselini. There, you can find the poignancy of the Italian working class of the time. O tempora, o mores!