La mia amica geniale

"My Brilliant Friend - The Story of a New Name" just premiered on HBO this week, and brilliantly at that. The perfect excuse to binge on the series' first season, which premiered in Fall of 2018. At that time, a companion documentary was released.

"My True Brilliant Friend" (2018 release from Italy; 76 min.) aims to give us a behind the scenes look at the making of the first season of "My Brilliant Friend". As the movie opens, we see the two leading stars, 15 yr. old Gaia Girace (playing Lila) and 16 yr. old Margherita Mazzucco (playing Lenu), being interviewed a a film festival. We then go to "One Year Earlier", as these 2 young ladies who have never acted professionally before, are chosen among thousands of wanna-be's and are now getting ready for rehearsals. "I immediately felt a bond", Girace comments, and indeed it is pretty apparent that these two hit it off and enjoy working together. We also see the Italian encourage them to dive into these characters. "Take a vacation from yourself, Margherita", he encourages her. Along the way, we get to know others from this large cast, but the focus remains mostly on Girace and Mazzucco.

This documentary is enjoyable, even if it really isn't essential. Mostly we learn that Girace is more driven than is Mazzucco ("I miss my friends". Ahead of season 2, I binge-watched all 8 episodes of the first season, and can only marvel at the top-notch storytelling demonstrated by the Italian production team. Episode 1 of "The Story of a New Name" picks up exactly where Season 1 left off, and is giving me hop that Season 2 will equally be must-see TV.

I was devastated after I binged season 1 & 2 of MBF that season 3 is so far away. So I devoured anything that had anything to do with this mini series. A documentary will do. I did scoff at having to PAY for it (c'mon HBO I subscribed only for this show and now have to pay to see the Making of it??) but I did and here we are.

So I rated a 6 it's a 6.5 rounded down. There's just not much here and zero structure. We go backwards then forwards then backwards in time. Lots of down time with all the actors was fun to watch but no insight into their relationships. Plenty of scenes of teens being girlfriends, giggling and teasing each other. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed thoroughly watching the transformation of these 2 young girls into actresses. But again there's really not much to see here. There are no real interviews with them or their families. Just some scenes of them at home. I expected to see the actual process of how they auditioned, what the thought process was, maybe an interview with the director and what the thoughts were in casting. Nope.

I did love the Aerial shot of the set. That was amazing. Wish there was more. And the audition / interview tapes. Wish there was more.

I'm not sure I got $2.99 worth of satisfaction, but I did enjoy it.

Now the endless wait for seasons 3 & 4. Sigh.

Captavating look at the casting for My Brilliant Friend and the real life friendship that develops between the two main characters. Behind the scenes look at the making of the series. I hope more of this will be released with the DVD. I can't wait for season 2 to come out!

That the main main leads for My Brilliant Friend needed to become close was probably a professional necessity, but here we see that it went well beyond that aspect, becoming a genuine friendship. I think it's also evident that in terms of casting, landing these two young women with very little previous experience was like striking gold. The same could be said for the even younger actresses that play Elena and Lina as children, who are so physically and constitutionally similar that when we see them all together it's almost jarring: It's like actually seeing the younger and older version of the same girls.

In any case, how much you enjoy this documentary will probably depend on how familiar (and interested) you are with the entire production process. The set building, the blocking, lighting, cinematography... In my case I am, so every minute was fascinating. Others may find less to hold onto. Still, the actresses are so genuine and open, it would be hard not to just go along for their ride.