DI4RIES Season 2 Review: Heartstopper in the Italian Version That is Good for Children and Adults | Di4ri
Cast: Andrea Arru, Flavia Leone, Sofia Nicolini, Biagio Venditti, Federica Franzellitti, Liam Nicolosi, Pietro Sparvoli, Francesca La Cava, Fiamma Parente, Luciano Spinelli, Emily Shaqiri, Gabriele Taurisano
Created By: Simona Ercolani, Mariano Di Nardo, Angelo Pastore, Livia Cruciani
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
DI4RIES Season 2 (Di4ri) is back on Netflix, the streaming platform’s first pre-adolescent Italian series, which tells the story of a group of middle school kids dealing with first loves, first disappointments, bullying, existential crises, family problems, and much more. After a rather disappointing first season which, perhaps, had yet to find its identity, the second chapter of DI4RIES takes a step forward and shows us that, by going deeper and taking more time to understand in which direction you want to go in a story, the results can be decidedly more convincing. September: the bell has rung and it’s time to go back to school for DI4RIES, an all-Italian coming of age starring a group of middle school students dealing with first loves, disappointments, and rivalries.
In this second season of the show – the first part of which will be available from 14 September 2023, while the second from March 2024 – produced by Stand by Me for Netflix, we meet the kids at the beginning of the new school year, the third, which will represent a moment of growth as well as the first important milestone for their adult life. As we will see in our review of DI4RIES Season 2, the new episodes of the show maintain unchanged the characteristics that made the first season successful, addressing important issues for young viewers, but they also bring with them the same critical issues that we had already noticed last year last, like the somewhat artificial dialogues and very predictable writing.
DI4RIES Season 2 Review: The Story Plot
After being transferred to the Marina Grande school, Livia, Pietro, and their friends, still together, will have to face the third and final year of middle school, among important challenges, clarifications, and new friendships. We had left the boys of the 2nd D after the occupation of the branch of the Galileo Galilei school in Marina Piccola, to avoid the institute being closed and the students being divided into different classes in the main headquarters in Marina Grande. Despite their complaints, however, we quickly learn that, for their third year, Livia, Pietro, and their friends had to move to Marina Grande, but managed to all stay together. In the meantime, the story didn’t work out between Isabel and Michele, while Giulio and Arianna got together. Daniele is still searching for his own identity and Livia seems unable to forgive Pietro for the bet he made on her the previous year.
The new entry to the school, Bianca, Giulio’s talented cousin, will upset the balance of the group of friends. During this second season, our young protagonists will have to face their third and final year of middle school, among important challenges, clarifications, and new friendships. An unforgettable year that will end with the first real test of their lives, the state exam, and a fundamental decision for the future: which path to take after middle school? The first season ended with two big questions: will the 2nd D kids be forced to leave the Marina Piccola school? And then, will Pietro be able to make it up to Livia after being caught betting on their young love? The second season of DI4RIES starts again with the answers to these two important questions, enriching the cast with a truly irresistible new entry.
The second season of DI4RIES will see the kids deal with the third year of middle school, a particularly complex period for those who remember it. Childhood definitively gives way to adolescence, the future and the first trials of life loom over the carefree lives of the protagonists, those solid friendships that are born at school, so pure and all-encompassing, are harshly put to the test by the ghosts of separation, which inevitably awaits the protagonists at the end of the school year. Not only that, this time, the end of school also means the time of the eighth-grade exam, the first real test that comes before these kids. Will everyone be able to overcome it? And will their friendship survive the separation, when each of them goes their way?
DI4RIES Season 2 Review and Analysis
The second season of DI4RIES brings to the screen all those changes that kids have to face during one of the most complex periods of adolescent life, the transition from middle school to high school. A moment that inevitably leads us to reflect on our own identity and who we would like to become as adults; in fact, these are above all the themes covered by the new episodes of the show, which focus in particular on the anxiety for an uncertain future, the affirmation of oneself and the desire for rebellion against the school system. However, just like in the first season of DI4RIES, there is also space for relationships with parents, first loves and LGBT issues, although the latter are more marginal. A product designed for teenagers must address certain topics at 360 degrees,
What emerges most in these new episodes of DI4RIES is the sense of belonging that binds the 3rd D students. An aspect that had already emerged at the end of the second season – when the boys had united to prevent the closure of the Galileo Galilei branch in Marina Piccola – but which now becomes the cornerstone around which the relationships and decisions made by the protagonists revolve. The fact of finding themselves together in a new school populated by unknown – and often hostile – kids means that the group of friends becomes even more cohesive, so much so that they feel lost at the idea, at the end of eighth grade, of having to break up; the choice of which high school to attend presupposes that the boys’ paths separate for the first time.
Although DI4RIES is a decent coming-of-age story, capable of examining the most relevant issues of a complex period of life such as adolescence, the dialogues are often a little artificial and inadequate for children as young as 14. There are evident forcings in the students’ conversations, perhaps implemented to express certain feelings (often too adult) which however are not reflected in the interpretations of its protagonists. Furthermore, the trick of breaking the fourth wall, through which the young actors speak directly to the audience, does not help: if the dialogues, at times, do not help to give truth to the scenes, this choice makes involvement even more difficult emotion of the viewer.
As with the first season, the second season of DI4RIES also uses the device of breaking the fourth wall: each character turns to the camera and therefore to the viewer when he reflects aloud on what happens to him or what he feels in a given moment. moment, as if the audience were the diary of the title, with which the character shares his story, his points of view, and his experience which, however young and sometimes naive, is considered, rightly at that age, the center of the world. Each episode has a different center, a specific protagonist who carries the entire narrative forward, but from a specific point of view. Thus, if in one episode the story is told from Pietro’s point of view and proceeds, telling of the small evolutions of his relationship with other characters and the dynamics that follow, in the next one Livia or Isabel will be the protagonists, the ones who they speak to the viewer, carrying forward the story of all their classmates.
The dimension of the class, then, of the cohesive group is something even stronger and more decisive in this second season, perhaps due to the greater awareness that each character has of their relationships with friends, but also because the class reacts to changes which he must face compactly, in a mutual search for affection and support. Of course, it will be difficult for young friends to understand each other, the choice of high school puts them at a crossroads where it is very difficult to choose the path to follow: will they remain faithful to their friends by making a group choice or will everyone follow their ambitions with the risk of being lost forever? These are fears and questions that anyone who has survived middle school and the choice of high school has asked, and therefore from the adult side of this dynamic, they might seem like minor concerns in the grand scheme of life.
However, DI4RIES is certainly not aimed at an adult audience, and therefore it will be interesting to see how the younger audience will react to this type of narrative, which shows difficulties as frightening and insurmountable which, with hindsight we know, can be overcome more or less without consequences. It will be equally interesting to understand how the young target audience of the series will absorb and react to some of the themes addressed in this second season. The problems faced by children from time to time end up taking on a universal character as, perhaps in a slightly too schematic manner, they trace what may be key problems of that extraordinary and delicate age. There are victims of bullying, those who want to break the rules to rebel, those who want to excel in sports, those who fall in love with someone else’s boyfriend, those who have to accept their parents’ decisions, and those who have a dream to realize, all stories that they form the backbone of the series.
DI4RIES Season 2 Review: The Last Words
DI4RIES Season 2 maintains unchanged the characteristics that made the first season successful, addressing important issues for young viewers, but also brings with it the same critical issues that we had already noticed last year, such as the somewhat artificial dialogues and very predictable writing. While recounting the troubles of youth, DI4RIES also gives us a way out of problems and allows spectators, whether small or large, to understand that, in the end, the solution to any drama, even the most insurmountable ones, is easier and within reach than you think: you just need to have a good group of friends, true, united, always ready to lend a hand to each other, a family present and never be afraid of not making it.
DI4RIES Season 2 Review: Heartstopper in the Italian Version That is Good for Children and Adults | Di4ri - Filmyhype
Director: Simona Ercolani, Mariano Di Nardo, Angelo Pastore, Livia Cruciani
Date Created: 2023-09-15 13:56
3.5
Pros
- Excellent cast with great chemistry
- Explores important issues that teenagers face today
- Some heartwarming and funny moments
Cons
- Pacing issues, especially in the first half of the season
- Some storylines are underdeveloped
- Can be a bit melodramatic at times
