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      Netflix's ‘The Lying Life of Adults’ Depicts Ferrante’s Naples

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      A new adaptation of the novel “The Lying Life of Adults” features formidable female protagonists and an Italy with distinct social classes.Like the novel by Elena Ferrante on which it is based, the opening line of Netflix’s “The Lying Life of Adults” is spoken by the precocious teenage protagonist, Giovanna, who is listening at the door while her parents talk about her.“Before leaving home, my father told my mother that I was ugly,” Giovanna says, adding forlornly that he had compared her to his estranged sister Vittoria, an insult so vile that it prompted Giovanna’s mother to counter: “Don’t say that. She is a monster.”Thus the viewer is introduced to Giovanna (Giordana Marengo) and Vittoria (Valeria Golino), fitting new entries in the pseudonymous Italian author’s rich stable of formidable female protagonists. Brought to life onscreen in a recent six-episode adaptation of Ferrante’s 2019 novel, they are as complex and contradictory as Lila and Lenù, the protagonists of Ferrante’s four best-selling novels chronicling their friendship, a version of which appeared in HBO’s “My Brilliant Friend.”In “The Lying Life of Adults,” too, Naples provides a socially textured setting for this coming-of-age story, which propels Giovanna from the innocence of childhood into the world of adults’ complex and contradictory compromises. Set in the mid-1990s, the series underscores the slippery social standing of Italian girls, and women, seeking to find a footing in a world where men call the shots.The show is “rightly” Ferrante’s world, according to Domenico Procacci, the chief executive of Fandango, an Italian entertainment company that produced “Lying Life” for Netflix, who spoke at a news conference presenting the series in Rome last month. Fandango also co-produced “My Brilliant Friend” with HBO, RAI, the Italian national broadcaster, and others.From left, Giovanna (Marengo), Angela (Rossella Gamba) and Beniamino (Antonio Corvino) in the series. The girls begin experimenting with the freedoms offered by Naples.Eduardo Castaldo/NetflixIn “Lying Life,” Giovanna navigates two distinct Neapolitan neighborhoods so drastically diverse that it is hard to believe they belong to the same city. She lives in the Rione Alto, an upper-middle-class neighborhood mostly developed in the 1960s and ’70s capping the Vomero hill with breathtaking views of the Gulf of Naples. “Outside of the Vomero, the city scarcely belonged to me,” Giovanna says in the novel.Inside the World of Elena FerranteThe mysterious Italian writer has won international attention with her intimate representations of Neapolitan life, womanhood and friendship. Beginner’s Guide: New to Elena Ferrante’s work? Here’s a breakdown of her most important writing.English-Language Translator: The work of Ann Goldstein has helped catapult Ferrante to global fame. Humility is a hallmark of her approach.‘My Brilliant Friend’: The HBO series based on Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels is a testament to the elusive writer’s ability to create inscrutable characters.‘The Lying Life of Adults’: The novel, which was published in English in 2020 and is now being adapted into a TV series by Netflix, is “a more vulnerable performance, less tightly woven and deliberately plotted,” our critic writes.But in her determination to meet her aunt, Giovanna opens her world to the lower city neighborhood that her father, Andrea (Alessandro Preziosi) escaped, but that Vittoria still inhabits: a run-down district called Pascone in the novel, which was shot in the formerly industrial rough-and-tumble Poggioreale neighborhood.“I don’t think there is any city in Italy where the differences between social classes are as evident as Naples, and at times where this difference counts so little,” Francesco Piccolo, one of the show’s four screenwriters, said at the news conference. In the series, viewers who do not speak Italian might miss the fact that the contrast is underscored by the difference in the Neapolitan dialect spoken between the two neighborhoods. In the wealthy Vomero, the dialect is spoken “for pleasure, for fun,” Piccolo said, while in the other, it is “a totally emotional dialect.”Getting Vittoria right, her movements as well as her dialect, weighed on Golino, who may be best remembered by American audiences for her star turn in the films “Rain Man” and “Hot Shots!” She, too, grew up in the Vomero neighborhood, on “the good side of the tracks,” she said in a telephone interview, and confessed to never having seen the “Naples of Vittoria,” to the point that she “had to go find it, understand it.”A voice coach taught what was to her essentially a new language. “Even though I am Neapolitan, I had never spoken in that way,” Golino said. “It was a sound that I had heard in the city, but it was never part of my world.” To embody the earthy bawdiness of Vittoria “was difficult,” the actress said. “I had to study the words, a way of moving, a way of inhabiting space,” which was foreign to her. “So I spent a lot of time in Naples, which is my city, but Naples is made of many layers,” she said.Golino, center, was nervous about getting the character of Vittoria right. “I had to study the words, a way of moving, a way of inhabiting space,” the actor said.Eduardo Castaldo/NetflixIn turn, Marengo, 19, who made her screen debut as Giovanna after being selected from among 3,000 girls auditioning for the role, said Golino had nurtured her throughout the series. “She gave me a lot of advice,” Marengo said, and the two created a strong bond that Marengo thought was apparent on screen, she said in a telephone interview.“We really helped each other,” Golino said. “We were both in the same state of mind. She because it was her first time, I because I was constantly afraid of making a mistake.”Marengo said she had felt the responsibility of portraying the protagonist of a story that evolves entirely from Giovanna’s perspective. “At first, I was anxious that I wouldn’t be able to make it,” she said. But the director and the crew made sure she did not feel that responsibility, “and that really calmed me down,” she said.In the novel, Giovanna’s inward gaze is even more pronounced. But Edoardo De Angelis, the show’s director, said transposing that inner rumination into visual form was a natural extension of Ferrante’s writing.“Every single word contains an evocation that suggests and invokes a multitude of images,” De Angelis said in a telephone interview. “The words always suggested the path to take because Ferrante’s evocations are always very concrete, even if they begin with an interior thought.”De Angelis’s Naples involves a cacophony of colors and sounds, the underground music scene in the city’s avant-garde community centers and the nostalgia of summer festivals hosted by Italy’s once-powerful Communist Party.Ferrante, the famously elusive author who has never officially made her identity public, has a screenwriting credit, and De Angelis, who is also credited with writing the script with Piccolo and Laura Paolucci, said that correspondence with Ferrante had involved “many letters to find a common language.”In transposing the novel to television, the story also took an unexpected turn, a plot twist that is not in the novel but that Ferrante signed off on, De Angelis said: She was well aware that moving from the pages to the screen “was an occasion to express elements that were only suggested and left to the imagination in the novel,” while on the screen, “the imagination becomes image,” offering the possibility of “more radical choices.”These radical choices open new avenues, and the episodes end with a series of unresolved questions to be answered, perhaps, in a possible sequel. (To this reader, the ending of the novel also suggested that a second book could follow.)Just as Golino worried about doing the character of Vittoria justice, “our series aims to show the authenticity of Italy, even outside of stereotypes,” Eleonora Andreatta, affectionately known as “Tinny,” the vice president of Italian originals at Netflix, said at the news conference. She also worked on the “My Brilliant Friend” series in her previous job at RAI.“Portraying a character that is not edifying, in which you draw out the human, the real human that makes mistakes,” and who was “disobedient” was one of the reasons that she had accepted the role, “even though it frightened me,” Golino said in the telephone interview.“A good actor doesn’t have to be a good liar, but usually they are,” she said at the news conference, eliciting laughs. “If they have to tell a lie, a good actor tells it very well.” More

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      Stream These 7 Movies and Shows Before They Leave Netflix in January

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      Among the gems leaving for U.S. subscribers next month are two irreverent TV adaptations and the last movie from one of the most successful filmmakers of the 1970s.Streaming services typically clear the deck at the end of the calendar year, changing out significant chunks of their movie and television libraries for new titles, and December 2022 was no exception — not leaving a whole lot for Netflix in the United States to lose in January. But there are a handful of worthwhile items to stream while you can, including an unconventional biopic, two irreverent TV adaptations, two sleeper series and the last movie from one of the most successful filmmakers of the 1970s. (Dates reflect the final day a title is available.)‘CHIPS’ (Jan. 12)This R-rated buddy comedy from the actor-turned-filmmaker Dax Shepard doesn’t quite replicate the shaggy charm of his amiable 2012 crime drama “Hit and Run,” but thankfully, “CHIPS” (2017) pays limited reverence to the long-running cop show on which it is based. In this version, Shepard plays a former motocross racer and rookie cop who is paired with an undercover F.B.I. agent (Michael Peña) assigned to sniff out corruption in the California Highway Patrol. Some of the gags fall flat, and Shepard’s real-life wife, Kristen Bell, is wasted in a small, one-note role. But Shepard and Peña make a dynamic odd couple, Vincent D’Onofrio makes for a formidable villain, and the action sequences are executed with skill and panache.Stream it here.‘Steve Jobs’ (Jan. 15)Aaron Sorkin’s spiritual sequel to “The Social Network” finds the Oscar-winning screenwriter again profiling a Silicon Valley innovator with offhand wit and dramatic flair, as directed with ferocity and intelligence by Danny Boyle. Sorkin resists the urge to tell the story of the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) in the cradle-to-grave fashion of the Walter Isaacson biography it’s based on, instead dramatizing three important product debuts (in 1984, 1986 and 1998). It’s an ingenious approach, directed with ferocity and intelligence by Danny Boyle; Fassbender, meanwhile, is marvelous, showcasing Jobs’s enigmatic aloofness and occasionally revealing the furious impatience underneath.Stream it here.‘Z Nation’: Seasons 1-5 (Jan. 26)This post-apocalyptic action-horror series wrapped up its five-season run in 2018; it was produced for Syfy by the Asylum, the direct-to-disc-and-streaming company known for its “mockbuster” rip-offs, films designed to fool consumers with titles and stories similar to those of major studio blockbusters. At first glance, “Z Nation” seems like a similar attempt to capitalize on the success of “The Walking Dead” (and its many spinoffs), with its ragtag group of zombie apocalypse survivors. But this is a looser, funkier show than its inspiration, puncturing the occasionally stifling solemnity of “The Walking Dead” with good old-fashioned B-movie gags and thrills.Stream it here.‘She’s Funny That Way’ (Jan. 29)The director Peter Bogdanovich’s final narrative film is a deliberate throwback to his previous screwball comedies, replicating the dazzling energy of his 1972 smash “What’s Up, Doc,” the New York setting of his delightful 1981 rom-com “They All Laughed” and the quicksilver pacing of his underrated 1992 adaptation of “Noises Off.” Owen Wilson stars as a Broadway director with a soft spot for call girls, to whom he occasionally offers financial support to help out of “the life”; Imogen Poots is delightfully dizzy as the recipient of his latest endowment. It’s not quite up to the heights of Bogdanovich’s early efforts, but it’s hard to resist a movie this charming, and his ensemble cast (which includes Jennifer Aniston, Will Forte, Kathryn Hahn and Rhys Ifans) is stellar.Stream it here.‘Addams Family Values’ (Jan. 31)One can’t help but question the timing of this particular exit, as Netflix enjoys the buzz of its original series “Wednesday” — a show that takes its inspiration from the Charles Addams cartoons and the old “Addams Family” television sitcom but especially from Barry Sonnenfeld’s darkly funny ’90s film adaptations. And when assembling this 1993 sequel, Sonnenfeld and the screenwriter Paul Rudnick clearly realized Christina Ricci’s Wednesday was the scene-stealer, building much of the story around her bone-dry wit (including an unforgettable summer camp section). The result is a “Godfather Part II” of black comedy, a rare sequel that surpasses its predecessor.Stream it here.‘Rambo’/‘Rambo: Last Blood’ (Jan. 31)The first two sequels to “First Blood,” starring Sylvester Stallone as the Vietnam veteran John Rambo, were quintessential Reagan-era cinema, a heady brew of the ’60s backlash, social conservatism and nuance-free foreign policy typical of the time. Stallone waited 20 years to make the fourth film, titled simply “Rambo” (2008), which he also co-wrote and directed, presenting his character as a man outside of his time, brought back into action by the tentativeness of his government. The series’s final film, “Last Blood” (2019), was firmly rooted in the Trump era, capitalizing on the fears and paranoia surrounding the border crisis. Both films have brutal but effective action scenes with a seemingly ageless Stallone still doing what he does well. But they’re most fascinating as snapshots of their cultural moments, and reminders of the political potency of mass entertainment.Stream ‘Rambo’ here, and ‘Rambo: Last Blood’ here.‘The Borgias: Seasons 1-3’ (Jan. 31)This well-pedigreed historical Showtime drama — created by the Oscar-winning writer and director Neil Jordan and starring Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander VI — had the misfortune of premiering in April 2011, the same month HBO debuted “Game of Thrones.” But now, with over a month to binge its 29 episodes, “Thrones” fans might find in it a new source of upscale action and sex, of sneering drama and ruthless political gamesmanship. Irons is on fire as the driven clergyman who ascends to papal power, and the show’s intelligent, well-researched scripts draw effective parallels between the Borgias and later families that sought and wielded political power.Stream it here. More

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      Emily Is Still in Paris. Why Are We Still Watching?

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      The Netflix hit has been widely mocked from the beginning. But despite its flaws — or perhaps because of them — it’s a pop-culture phenomenon.Here is one inviolable rule that I have learned governs American screens: If ever I see a young woman standing before a mirror holding a pair of scissors, it is almost always a harbinger of some unspeakable doom. Whether in comedy or in horror, this image is cinematic shorthand for when the writers want us to know that whatever this woman’s inner torment may have been in that moment, it won, obliterating her sanity and driving her to this act of assured self-destruction.That is how we find the titular heroine of “Emily in Paris,” in the third season’s premiere: still in Paris, standing before a mirror in the middle of the night, muttering to herself before snipping off a jagged, uneven chunk of hair across her forehead. She has been jolted awake from a nightmare in which she saw herself forced to confront her deepest fear: having to make a decision on her own.This is an existential crisis for Emily Cooper, who, before her French sojourn, was happily shilling tag lines for I.B.S. drugs in Chicago. As laid out in the series’s first season, by way of a mystifying fluke, Emily finds herself at a luxury marketing firm in Paris, going in place of her pregnant boss. (In this universe, we are to assume that this enormous company has only two employees and that corporations simply love to give unasked-for promotions to junior underlings.) She is there in Paris to provide an “American point of view,” despite not possessing much of one, beyond lovingly declaring that “the entire city looks like ‘Ratatouille.’” By the end of the first two seasons, she has conducted sanitized love affairs with a rotating cast of forgettable men and embodied a portrait of American middle-managerial insufferability specifically calculated to drive her Parisian co-workers and watchers of the show equally apoplectic.The show’s second season ends on a low-stakes cliffhanger that kept unwilling “Emily in Paris” hostages like me (I cannot in all honesty call us “fans”) on begrudging tenterhooks for a year: Will Emily choose the safety of a big corporation and stick with Madeline, her mentor from Chicago, an ur-girlboss of corporate marketing who is obnoxiously secure in her American basicness and a cartoonish portrait of who Emily might become two decades from now? Or will she defect and join the marketing coup being staged by Sylvie, the abrasive yet terrifyingly magnetic Frenchwoman whose approval Emily has spent the past two seasons trying to win with an almost-feral desperation?Beneath the Bambi-like visage and the sweet ebullience lies a stark void of nothingness.For the pugnaciously good-humored Emily, whose sole defining characteristic so far has been her geniality (even being called an “illiterate sociopath” by her former friend barely made a dent in her sunniness), this outer turbulence has forced her to exhibit signs of an inner life for the first time in the show’s run. For once, Emily is visibly shaken. And in the time-honored tradition of one-dimensional screen heroines who came before her, Emily has commenced yet another season-long course of causing unintentional catastrophes with the only act of intention seen from her so far: the guillotining of her own bangs.When the first season of “Emily in Paris” debuted on Netflix in October 2020, it was widely mocked and near-universally reviled in both nations for an abundance of reasons. There was the literalism of its construct. (There is truly nothing more to it than here is Emily, who is in Paris.) There was the egregiously loud costuming. (What sort of corporate culture in France allows for bucket hats to be worn at an office, and why is Emily in possession of so many of them?) Then there were the characters, a buffoonish assemblage of dated stereotypes that managed to offend both the Americans and the French.But despite its utter frictionlessness or perhaps because of it, the compulsively hate-​watchable show became a phenomenon.I began watching this show out of the crudest form of identitarian loyalty, because I harbor an unshakable sympathy for any youngish woman (even fictional; even if she wears bucket hats) whose profession (like mine) requires using the word “social” as a noun with a straight face. Far be it from me to demand interiority from rom-com ingénues experiencing character development for the first time, but watching Emily utter marketing argot like “corporate commandments” and breezily brush off every cruel joke about her dimwittedness left me wondering: Does this show want me to laugh at Emily for the particular brand of sincere, millennial smarm she represents? Or am I meant to cheer at her (very American) refusal to change, no matter what her travails in Paris put her through?To say Emily is chasing anything would be ascribing too much agency, with which even her creators have not dignified her.In both literature and cinema, Paris has long been the milieu in which to place a certain class of mordantly restless, cosmopolitan and upwardly mobile white American woman, who finds herself in the city (often fruitlessly) chasing things her homeland has denied her: a renewed sense of self after heartbreak; liberation (both sexual and intellectual); sometimes adventure; occasionally adultery. Paris harbored Edith Wharton’s Countess Olenska when the insipid society gentleman she fell in love with hadn’t the spine or the stomach to claim their life together. In her memoir, “My Life in France,” Julia Child recalls arriving in Paris still a “rather loud and unserious Californian,” and how it was the city, along with her beloved husband, Paul, that molded her into the woman the world got to know. Paris was where Carrie Bradshaw, perpetually in love with the idea of love, finally realized that maybe all it did was make her more miserable. Emily Cooper, however, is not one of these women. To say she is chasing anything (except perhaps a steady stream of head pats of approval from her bosses) would be ascribing too much agency, with which even her creators have not dignified her.In 1919, when Wharton, herself an expatriate in Paris, wrote that “compared with the women of France, the average American woman is still in the kindergarten,” she might as well have been talking about Emily, whose stock-in-trade is a unique brand of empty infantilism. Nowhere is this more evident than in the way the millennial Emily Cooper seems engineered from a boomer’s nightmare of what young people today are like: indolent, addicted to their phones and obsessed with being rewarded for doing the bare minimum. The show’s architects have endowed her with what has come to be known as her generation’s worst trait: a compulsive devotion to online oversharing and the cult of manufactured relatability. But what sets Emily apart is that beneath the Bambi-like visage and the sweet ebullience lies a stark void of nothingness.The Chekhov’s Bangs incident turns out to have only the most minor payoff later on, when for once, Emily makes a life-altering choice that of course fosters zero introspection. For a show that managed to make even the complexity and angst of infidelity as saccharine as the pain au chocolat that Emily posts on Instagram with the caption “butter+chocolate = 💓,” watching her give herself what her friend calls “trauma bangs” was about as abrupt an upping of the stakes in the Emilyverse as can be. But for those of us who’ve continued to watch, we do it despite our bewilderment — like Emily butchering her hair — even though we know it’s a mess.Iva Dixit is a staff editor for the magazine. She last wrote a Letter of Recommendation about raw onions.Source photographs: Stéphanie Branchu/Netflix More

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      How Well Do You Know Your Holiday Movies?

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      Between a murderous Santa wielding a sledgehammer and an elf throwing a rave in a corporate mailroom, Christmas movies seem to get more outlandish every year. How well do you know your festive films?
      Image credits: Hallmark Channel (“A Royal Corgi Christmas”); Bettmann/Getty Images (Queen Elizabeth II); Michael Reynolds/EPA, via Shutterstock (the Bidens); Pool photo by Jonathan Buckmaster (Muick and Sandy mourning the Queen’s death); Netflix (“The Princess Switch”); Universal Pictures (“Violent Night”); Hallmark Movies & Mysteries (“Christmas in Montana”); Hulu (“Happiest Season”); Netflix (“Falling for Christmas”); Paramount Pictures (“Mean Girls”); Disney (“The Parent Trap”); Paramount Pictures (“Once Upon a Christmas”); Disney (“Noelle”); Hallmark Channel (“Hanukkah on Rye”); Universal Pictures (“Last Christmas”).
      Produced by Tala Safie and Josephine Sedgwick. More

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      ‘The Witcher: Blood Origin’ Is TV’s Latest Big Fantasy Prequel

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      The mini-series series takes place 1,200 years before the events of “The Witcher,” which has been one of Netflix’s most-watched shows since its debut in 2019.Producers of hit series have long used spinoffs to keep the stories going (and the ad and subscription dollars flowing). In our I.P.-obsessed era of pop culture universes, the desire to preserve — and ideally expand — popular TV franchises has only intensified. And more often than not these days, going forward means looking backward.This year, the biggest new series have been prequels, with “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” and “House of the Dragon” being set long before the events of “The Lord of the Rings” and “Game of Thrones.” “Andor” is a prequel for a movie, “Rogue One,” that was itself a prequel for other “Star Wars” films. This month “Yellowstone” added “1923,” another prequel to join last year’s “1883.”Now on Sunday comes “The Witcher: Blood Origin,” a Netflix mini-series that takes place 1,200 years before Geralt of Rivia started slaying ill-minded creatures and thoughtfully pushing back his signature white mane in “The Witcher,” which premiered in 2019 and returns next summer for its third season.Based on stories by the Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, the franchise is named after monster hunters, of which Geralt is the most famous. It is set on a continent (conveniently named the Continent) where witchers rub elbows with elves and dwarves, powerful sorceresses and power-hungry nobility.A spinoff was probably inevitable for a title that has conquered every platform it has encountered: The streaming adaptation of “The Witcher” followed popular game and comic book versions, and it has become one of Netflix’s most-watched shows ever.For the creator and showrunner of “Blood Origin,” Declan de Barra, the initial motivation was the opportunity to expand on clues or allusions in Sapkowski’s books, including by introducing new characters. Foremost was a desire to focus on the Continent when it was dominated by elves.“My favorite part of the books was identifying with the elvish story,” de Barra, 51, said in a video conversation. “You could see that they were a post-colonized sort of species, they could barely reproduce and they’re pre-agrarian, but yet they have this mythology that’s sort of hinted out in the background. What happened before? What was their Rome before the fall?”As a writer and co-executive producer for “The Witcher,” de Barra had begun mapping out what he thought happened before the Conjunction of the Spheres — the cataclysm that allowed both humans and monsters to travel from their own worlds to the Continent. So when the original series’ creator, Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, asked him to draw up a spinoff concept, de Barra was ready. For his story engine, he picked one of the oldest and most tested: A group of mismatched individuals must team up to save their world, in this case from rampaging overlords and one demented wizard.“I just imagined a group of people who would hate each other if they turn up at a party, and put them in the crucible together,” he said. “People who are all different and have reason to have beef with each other but have to work together.”Henry Cavill, the monster-slaying star of “The Witcher,” has said he is leaving the show after next season.Jay Maidment/NetflixThis being the “Witcher” franchise, some of them also find reasons to have sex with one another. And yes, there is just as much jarringly modern profanity in “Blood Origin” as in the main show, along with the goofy irreverence that sets the franchise apart. (Last year’s special, “The Witcher: Fireplace,” is an hourlong shot of a crackling fire.)“What’s great about Declan is that he’s very energetic and he has a very raucous, naughty sense of humor — and he brings that to ‘Blood Origin,’” Lenny Henry, who plays the plotting Chief Sage Balor, said in a video chat. “So you get all the heightened Shakespearean arias from some of the characters and then you get that low side.”Balor plays a crucial role in the “Blood Origin” universe, setting in motion a series of events that will ripple through time and space. Among the characters most affected are Éile (Sophia Brown) and Fjall (Laurence O’Fuarain), two warriors from rival clans who end up fighting on the same side as part of the main superteam. (How super? The mighty Michelle Yeoh is a key part of it.)In a way, Éile is “The Witcher” in a nutshell: a fierce fighter who both comments on and drives the action with song — this is, after all, the rare fantasy series that has spawned a cult hit, with “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher” from Season 1. This is an essential element for the Ireland-born de Barra, who used to front a hard-rocking band and who is the co-writer of several numbers for both streaming “Witcher” properties.“My favorite songs are ones that end really short,” he said by way of explaining the decision to cut the prequel down from its planned six episodes to four. He also draws connections between epic Celtic ballads and Éile’s tunes, including “The Black Rose” — a direct reference to the 16th-century Irish song“Róisín Dubh.”“I wanted her to be writing rebel songs for the people,” de Barra said. “I knew there would be nods to Irish mythology as well as Eastern European mythology, because Sapkowski does that himself with some of his places and people, like Skellige Islands and stuff like that.“He has a potpourri of all sort of European mythology and he pulls the stories and puts them together and bakes his own cake,” de Barra added. “So I felt very comfortable doing that.”Offscreen, Brown, who is Black, has been at the center of the kinds of caustic discussions, regarding race and how it relates to source material, that have occurred within other fantasy fandoms. (You might recall how the sight of Black elves in “The Rings of Power” threw some viewers into a tizzy.)“If something new is coming into a space, people are always going to think ‘Oh, that’s not right,’” Brown said. “I got some difficulty when the casting came out, but I’m not new to the industry, and I’ve worked very hard to be here, so it didn’t waver my knowing I was meant to be there.”Henry — who is also Black and who played the harfoot Sadoc Burrows in “The Rings of Power” — chose to laugh at it all. “What you have to say to those guys is, ‘You will believe an Upside Down where there’s a big weird creature made out of corned beef threatening children, but you won’t believe a Black elf?’” he said. “It’s all pretend — anybody can be what they want to be.”Angst about Éile’s function in the “Witcher” mythos is also related to what some fans have decried as drastic departures from the books and video games in the original series. These complaints have grown louder online since Henry Cavill, who plays Geralt and who has been an outspoken fan of the Sapkowski stories, announced, with little explanation, that he is leaving the show after the upcoming season.The series follows a makeshift team trying to save the world, including Éile, a warrior elf played by Sophia Brown.Lilja JonsdottirDe Barra said any adapter of the “Witcher” stories is “never going to be able to satisfy everybody,” explaining that dedicated fans of the books and the games will all have their own differing views of what the characters and the world should look like.“No two people are ever going to agree on it,” he said. “The core that was important for me was just telling a story that I believed in and that could work on its own whilst honoring the books.”The TV shows integrate Sapkowski’s vision and broaden it, and this dual approach is particularly apparent in “Blood Origin.” As the title suggests, we meet some familiar characters and there are plot developments that will bear fruit generations later, in the timeline of the main series. But de Barra cautions viewers against drawing too many conclusions.For example, in one scene a seer — who is well known among “Witcher” fans — says one of Éile’s descendants will be very important in the future, but the show doesn’t indicate whom it will be.“We can’t spell it out, not now, but it will be spelled out later,” de Barra said. “Most people are saying. …” He trailed off. “Anyway, I’ll leave it for now.”Such comments will be cryptic for those new to the “Witcher” universe, but they should not worry: While some plot points will be endlessly dissected on “Witcher” subreddits, “Blood Origin” stands on its own. “I hope we can introduce many new fans to the show and then they can pour into the marquee series and fall in love with fantasy,” Brown said.“I’ve watched things when I was younger that made me want to be an actor and made me want to escape and see the world in different ways,” she continued. “So I hope people can see the world differently through seeing our worlds.” More

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      ‘Emily in Paris’ Star Lily Collins On Her Own Trauma Haircut

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      The cast also talked about berets and big life choices at a screening and reception at the French Consulate General to celebrate Season 3.It was a gloomy, rainy 40-degree evening, but on a blue carpet inside the French Consulate General on the Upper East Side before a special screening of Season 3 of “Emily in Paris” last week, the cast was as colorful as the show.Lucien Laviscount, who plays Emily’s British boyfriend, Alfie, flashed a grin as he strolled along the line of reporters in a neon pink suit with matching sneakers. Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, who plays Emily’s French boss, Sylvie, cocked an eyebrow coyly at the cameras as she tilted her head to show off a big silver arrow piercing her right ear above an asymmetrical black gown.Kate Walsh, who plays Emily’s American boss, Madeline, struck a pose in a long white gown, thrusting out her left leg to showcase a daring thigh-high slit above a sheer black mesh panel. She was accompanied by her fiancé, Andrew Nixon.The show’s star, Lily Collins, appeared in a sparkling white long-sleeved minidress covered with silver bows, black tights and sparkling silver platform heels, and the blunt bangs her character, Emily, cuts in the first episode of the new season. (“Trauma bangs,” as Emily’s roommate Mindy, played by Ashley Park, terms them.)Emily is under pressure at the beginning of the third season of the Netflix series, which returns Wednesday. She faces big choices at work and in love. Should she stick with her Chicago boss, Madeline, at Savoir or join her French boss, Sylvie, at her new marketing firm? And should she hold out hope for the unavailable Gabriel, played by Lucas Bravo, or embrace a long-distance relationship with her flame in London, Alfie?Ms. Collins and Ms. Park said they found it relatable that Emily would reach for the scissors amid paralyzing indecision.“I had a life change haircut when I was, I think, 26,” Ms. Collins said. “I cut all my hair off — it was a pixie haircut — and I went to the Vanity Fair Oscars party and people were like, ‘What happened?’”The actress and model Camille Razat and her partner, the photographer Etienne Baret.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesLucien Laviscount and Lucas Bravo, who are “Emily in Paris” cast members.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesMs. Park, who wore a purple-and-black zebra print gown and black latex boots, said that when she was in seventh grade, she wanted wavy hair. “But I got a perm, and it was way too much, so I had to wear my hair in this topknot that I called ‘the pineapple’ for a year!” said Ms. Park, her dark brown eyes set off by bold purple eye shadow.Jeremy O. Harris, the “Slave Play” playwright who plays the designer Gregory Dupree on the show, didn’t hesitate when asked if Emily should return to Chicago.“She just needs to get away from men,” he said, dressed in a white patterned jumpsuit and long-sleeved red shrug.“There’s too much romance in Paris,” he added. “I think she should stay in Europe, but I want to see ‘Emily in Berlin’ or ‘Emily in Italy.’”The playwright Jeremy O. Harris plays the designer Gregory Dupree in “Emily in Paris.”Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesDarren Star, who created the series, said the show will be sticking to its title, though — at least for this season.“Emily is in Paris for the moment,” said Mr. Star, who wearing a black suit. The series was renewed for a fourth season, and, he hopes, it will extend beyond that.“If they want us back, we’re coming back,” he said. “I think there’s more story to tell.”Paris has, of course, proven thus far an inexhaustible sense of amusement for viewers as Emily navigates cultural differences like a double cheek kiss greeting and an office that doesn’t open before 10:30 a.m.“Emily going into the office that early was definitely funny,” said Camille Razat, who plays Camille, a Parisian socialite and a rival for Gabriel’s affections. Ms. Razat wore a long-sleeved red dress with matching opera gloves. “We work to live, not live to work,” she said.The French actor William Abadie agreed. He plays Antoine, the owner of a perfume company that is a client of Savoir’s. “I live in America, and I came here because I wanted to be an actor, but also because I respect the professionalism,” he said.The actor William Abadie.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesDarren Star, the creator of “Emily in Paris.”Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesThe show’s French and American cast members shared one thing, though: affection for the beret, the round, flattish felt cap that Emily wears at least half a dozen of in the show’s first two seasons.“I have lots of berets,” said Mr. Harris, his eyes lighting up.“I have a winter beret, a summer beret. …” Ms. Walsh said.The show’s French cast members had little personal experience wearing them, though they were not opposed to the idea.“Why not?” said Mr. Bravo, who was wearing a black velvet suit.“I never wear them,” Mr. Arnold said. “I think I would,” he added, “But I like my hair too much.”Quick Question is a collection of dispatches from red carpets, gala dinners and other events that coax celebrities out of hiding. 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      in Movies

      ‘Stars at Noon,’ ‘Vortex’ and More of This Year’s Streaming Gems

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      A look back at some of the finest under-the-radar streaming picks of the year.December is upon us, prompting a glut of year-end best-of lists from film critics, awards-giving bodies and various experts. Most of those feature titles you might not have seen, and some you haven’t even heard of. In that year-end wrap-up spirit, this month’s guide to the hidden gems of your subscription streaming services consists solely of films released in the United States during the past calendar year. Check out some obscurities, and impress your friends and colleagues at holiday parties.‘Stars at Noon’Stream it on Hulu.Claire Denis’s erotic drama is immersed in the worlds of journalism, espionage and geopolitics, but the real subject is one of her standbys: the sexual dynamics between men and women, and the transactional nature therein. The participants here are Trish (Margaret Qualley), an underemployed American journalist in Nicaragua who’s doing a bit of sex work as a side hustle, and Daniel (Joe Alwyn), a British businessman who’s both buying and selling. Denis keenly observes how the power shifts between them, and rarely without a struggle; their dialogue scenes have a cockeyed unpredictability, particularly since one or both is always in a state of desperation. Alwyn is fine, good even, but Qualley is a revelation; she is, by turns, funny, sexy, savvy and broken.‘Vortex’Stream it on Mubi.The extremist Argentine-French filmmaker Gaspar Noé’s most recent effort is his gentlest, though only because he’s best known for provocations like “Irreversible,” “Enter the Void” and “Climax.” Here, he tells the story of a long-married couple (played by the Italian filmmaker Dario Argento and the French actress Françoise Lebrun) and how their idyllic retirement is ripped apart by her increasingly debilitating dementia. It sounds not unlike Michael Haneke’s devastating “Amour,” a similarly dour tale of aging and mortality, but Noé inserts an additional visual dimension: He plays out the events in split-screen, with her separative frame a devastating visualization of her mental isolation — a stylistic flourish that makes this harrowing drama all the more affecting.The Projectionist Chronicles a New Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.Golden Globe Nominations: Here are some of the most eyebrow-raising snubs and surprises from this year’s list of nominees.Gotham Awards: At the first official show of the season, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won big.Governors Awards: Stars like Jamie Lee Curtis and Brendan Fraser worked a room full of academy voters at the event, which is considered a barometer of film industry enthusiasm.Rian Johnson:  The “Glass Onion” director explains the streaming plan for his “Knives Out” franchise.‘The Survivor’Stream it on HBO Max.Once upon a time, a Barry Levinson-directed feature based on a true story, with an all-star cast and successful debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, would have been a shoo-in for Oscar consideration. In today’s peculiar marketplace, it’s bought up by HBO only to never be seen again. But this is a stellar historical drama, with Ben Foster in fine form (both dramatically and athletically) as Harry Haft, an Auschwitz captive who survived his time there by boxing, and later used those skills to make a career as a boxer in America. The fight scenes are brutal, the dramatic stretches wrenching, and Levinson orchestrates his first-rate cast with aplomb.‘Elesin Olba: The King’s Horseman’Stream it on Netflix.In 1943, in the region of Africa now known as Nigeria, the longstanding tradition of the tribal king’s horseman committing ritual suicide after the death of the king (and thus following him into the afterlife) was prevented by British colonialists. That true event inspired Wole Soyinka’s venerable play “Death and the King’s Horseman,” which was adapted into this absorbing feature film by the Nigerian novelist, playwright and filmmaker Biyi Bandele (who died just before its premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival). The portraiture of customs and rituals is fascinating, and the Brits are properly villainous. But the film truly comes alive in its closing scenes, a thought-provoking and thoughtful contemplation of mortality and responsibility.‘Navalny’Stream it on HBO Max.Between interviews for Daniel Roher’s documentary, but on a hot mic, the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny tells a friend, “He’s filming it all for the movie he’s gonna release if I get whacked.” That candor and fearlessness was part of what made Navalny a thorn in the side of Putin’s Kremlin, and as such, he was the target of a likely assassination attempt by poisoning in 2020. Roher’s cameras follow Navalny as he recovers, prepares to return to Russia and participates in an independent investigation of the poisoning, resulting in an explosive, accidental confession by one of the perpetrators. Roher carefully avoids outright hagiography (via evenhanded discussion of Navalny’s image and ethics), using his access and materials to assemble a first-rate, though nonfiction, political thriller.‘My Old School’Stream it on Hulu.The story of a supposedly 17-year-old secondary school student who was revealed, after over a year in classes, to be a 32-year-old former student caused a sensation in Scotland (where it occurred) and across Europe — so much so that it was slated to be adapted into a feature film, with the actor Alan Cumming in the leading role. That film was never made, but now the story has become a documentary, and since the film’s subject would consent only to an audio interview, Cumming appears on camera to lip-sync the man’s words. (Got that?) The rest of the tall tale is told via animation, archival footage and alternately funny and contemplative contemporary interviews with the classmates of “Brandon Lee,” who attempt to puzzle out why they were so easily fooled, and (in the stellar closing sections) how well they remember the entire affair. The director Jono McLeod tells the story straight, as they all heard it and as “Lee” told it, which makes for a wild, twisty ride indeed.‘Free Chol Soo Lee’Stream it on Mubi.Everybody loves the story of an innocent man, wrongfully accused and then rightfully freed, and it’s been a standby of documentary cinema since (at least) “The Thin Blue Line.” Julie Ha and Eugene Yi’s film begins as that movie, relating how Chol Soo Lee was convicted and imprisoned for a murder in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1973, based on scant evidence and flimsy eyewitness testimony, only to become a common cause for the Korean American community until he was finally freed more than a decade later. But that’s only part of the story. With sensitivity and nuance, the filmmakers follow Lee’s troubled post-prison journey, reminding us that happy endings are often temporary. A riveting and often heartbreaking tale. More

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      in Television

      Chelsea Handler Needs More Jennifer Coolidge in Her Life

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      The comedian, whose new Netflix special is “Revolution,” talks about siblings, Kristin Hannah and no longer being annoyed when people talk about gratitude.Early in the pandemic, one of Chelsea Handler’s sisters moved in with her. That wouldn’t have been a problem, except that she brought her three adult children.“I didn’t have children on purpose, and everyone knows that,” Handler said in a phone interview this month. “Just because I have five extra bedrooms doesn’t mean I’m looking for company.”Handler’s new comedy special, “Revolution,” is equal parts Covid diary — Covid sex, Covid pets, Covid houseguests — and social commentary, particularly on the fraught subjects of power, gender and race.“My brother was like, ‘Chelsea, not all white guys are bad guys,’” she says in the special, which begins streaming Dec. 27 on Netflix. “I go, ‘Nobody said that. Nobody ever said that. But now you sound suspicious.’”Handler spoke with us about what it took to move her family out (“I had to put my house on the market and sell it”) as well as some of her favorite things, including skiing, oysters and fiction by Madeline Miller and Kristin Hannah. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Future Islands Somebody turned me on to the band Future Islands about six months ago, and I’ve been loving it. It’s nice and mellow. It’s great background music when I’m home. It’s my cup of tea. You can only listen to so much Top 40 before you want to rip your eyes out.2. My Siblings It’s really nice to have adult closeness with all of your siblings. They’re the only people in your life who understand exactly what you went through with your parents growing up. We’ve gotten closer and closer as we’ve gotten older. There are five of us. We’re a big pack, a unit. My most meaningful relationships are with my siblings.3. “The Great Alone” Kristin Hannah’s “The Great Alone” is a book about something that I would never normally read about: Alaska, the wilderness, living off the grid, all things that I have no interest in. It’s really about aloneness and survival and Mother Nature and what it brings to everybody in terms of mood, in terms of stability, in terms of livelihood — and it’s one of the most beautiful books ever. It’s far out of my comfort zone, and I like it a lot when I enjoy something that I normally wouldn’t have an appetite for.4. “Circe” Madeline Miller’s novel “Circe” is a book that took me to another planet. It was so beautifully written. You would read the end of a chapter and just have to put it down and think about what you just read because it’s so poetic. It’s kind of a metaphor for life and the people that come in and out of your life, and loss and love and death and, again, aloneness. For a long time I was very scared of spending time alone and reading about people being alone. That’s why “The Great Alone” and this book both struck me so much. It made being alone seem like something almost mythical and mystical.5. Oysters My favorite in the world are the grilled oysters at Blue Plate Oysterette in Santa Monica. But I will eat oysters almost every night before I go onstage, whenever I’m somewhere that they’re going to be fresh. I try not to have them in Iowa.6. Gratitude I’d heard people banging on about gratitude for a long time, and it usually just annoyed me. Then someone told me that you can actively shift your energy by writing down everything that you’re grateful for. So, a few months ago, I started writing down 20 things I’m grateful for every morning. I can’t describe to you what a difference it makes. You are on a higher vibration and frequency when you wake up and start counting all the things that you’re happy about.7. Stand-Up Comedy To be able to get onstage and command an audience of a few thousand people every night feels really good. Strangers are sitting next to each other, laughing at the things that you’re saying. That is the best gift that you could give anybody.8. Martha’s Vineyard When I was a little kid, all I wanted to do was go to the Jersey Shore with the rest of my friends, and my parents were like, ‘You’re not going to the Jersey Shore. We have a house in Martha’s Vineyard. That’s much nicer.’ Now that I’m older, I think it’s one of the most magical places. I have the best memories of being there with all of my family. We grew up there every summer of our lives. We still go there every summer. It’s one of the milestones of my life.9. Skiing I’m not very coordinated, so 10 years ago I decided to pay somebody to teach me how to be a good skier. I wanted to be good enough to be able to ski off anything. I had a private ski guide for seven years and now I’m an expert skier — I can heli-ski, I can ski off the top of anything — and that was a big dream of mine. I take skiing very seriously.10. Jennifer Coolidge She’s been great in “The White Lotus.” Everything she serves up in all of her performances is everything that we could all use a little bit more of. The ridiculousness, the kind of wide-eyed, bushy-tailed approach to life, and the kind of unapologetic nature of who she is, I think, is a great example for all women not to take ourselves so seriously. We all need a little bit more Jennifer Coolidge in our lives. More