The Law According to Lidia Poet Reviewed by Riveting Riffs Magazine

Matilda De Angelis Delivers an Emmy Award Performance

Lidia Poet Review Photo Two The Netflix six-part series The Law According to Lidia Poët set in 1883, Turin Italy is loosely based on the life of Lidia Poët the first woman registered as a lawyer in Italy, only to have her status as a lawyer revoked three months later. Matilda De Angelis puts in an Emmy Award performance as Poët and Pier Luigi Pasino is very strong in his role as Lidia Poët’s brother Enrico. Eduardo Scarpetta is cast as Jacopo Barberis, brother-in-law to Lidia and Enrico. Enrico is miscast, not in the film, but in life, as someone who seems to have a genuinely good heart, but he just cannot seem to get over fancying himself as a ladies’ man. Okay let’s just be blunt about it, Jacopo seems to have a problem with being committed to any one woman. To say that Teresa Barberis played by Sara Lazzaro is stern and at times harsh, while probably accurate may not be totally fair, as she lives in a culture that continually represses the rights of women and constantly tells them that their only places are as teachers, wives and mothers. Sinead Thornhill plays Teresa’s daughter Marianna, the new generation of Italian women, who want to have their voices heard, who want women to be able to choose the direction of their lives, in all areas of their lives. To say that Marianna is feisty, would be an understatement.

The series is directed by Letizia Lamartire and Matteo Rovere. There were five screenwriters for the series, so we are not going to name them all.

The Law According to Lidia Poët is one of a few period pieces that immediately come to mind in which the leading characters are women, who live in a time when women were continually denied equal rights to men. The others come to mind are Un Asunto Privado streaming on Amazon Prime, in which Spanish actress Aura Garrido stars as a woman who is denied a place on the police force for no other reason than she is a woman and the Netflix series from a few years ago Las Chicas del Cable, in which four outstanding Spanish actresses shared the lead roles.

We want to make clear that although Lidia Poët really was the first woman recognized as a lawyer in Italy and when denied ended up collaborating with her brother Enrico, also a lawyer, until she was finally reinstated as a lawyer when she was sixty-five years of age.

The costumes are breathtaking and perhaps there is a future Emmy Award for Stefano Ciammitti (Costume Designer) and Sara Barsotti (Costume Supervisor) and her staff. The only real criticism we have of this production is the music supervision. Some of the selections of music were dubious and if the intention was to startle the viewer it did that, but not in a good way. The song “Misfit,” is absurdly miscast.

Matilda De Angelis has good onscreen chemistry with both Eduardo Scarpetta and Pier Luigi Pasino. There are dramatic scenes, as well as humorous ones.

The film is in Italian, and you should watch it in the English language and then choose your native language with subtitles.

We can only hope there will be a second season and if we consider the way this season ended, we would have to think that will happen. The challenge for Netflix is they need to make some choices in the future specifically about releasing episodes on a weekly basis instead of all at once and evaporating content. People binge watch and now have to wait often for eighteen months or more for the next season and this writer can only speak for himself, but the momentum and interest is lost. All that to say, give us a second season of The Law According to Lidia Poët sooner than later.

You can watch the trailer here.

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This review by Joe Montague published February 19th, 2023 is protected by copyright © and is the property of Riveting Riffs Magazine All Rights Reserved. All photos are the the property of Netflix unless otherwise noted and all are protected by copyright © All Rights Reserved. This review may not be reproduced in print or on the internet or through any other means without the written permission of Riveting Riffs Magazine.