Elena Ferrante Stays Out of the Picture

October 31, 2018

Saverio Costanzo, the 43-year-old director of the HBO limited series “My Brilliant Friend,” is a haunted man. For over a decade, he has corresponded with a woman whose face he cannot see, whose voice he cannot hear, whose existence is confirmed only by the many thousands of words she has written dissecting his artistic choices. When he speaks of her, his black eyes turn upward, as if seeking a trace of her in the cracks of the ceiling…