Why is The Decameron the hottest Netflix series right now?

Turning period stories into comedy series is the trend of the moment. It doesn't matter if they are based on real characters like The Great about Catherine II of Russia, on romance novels like Bridgerton, or on a mix of both possibilities like My Lady Jane, the uchronia-fantasy novel by Jodi Meadows featuring the first queen of England and Ireland. Even great literature is being revisited. This happens with The Decameron, an adaptation of the mid-14th-century text written by the poet Giovanni Boccaccio. The story of ten young people who, to escape the deadly plague of 1348, hid for ten days in a villa in the Tuscan countryside, spending the time exchanging humorous, often erotic and bucolic stories. A rich trove to dive into, as Netflix has done this time. Not adapting the collection to the letter, but taking inspiration from the start of the vile disease to move a group of servants, gentlemen, and noblewomen to a princely and theoretically impregnable residence on the outskirts of Florence. Bringing them together, however, not to tell each other stories—not at least all the time, certainly not in front of the viewers—but to stage one themselves. Boccaccio's manuscript is only hinted at, like a spark to ignite a completely different narrative. The villa, for the platform show, becomes the stage on which the characters will perform, becoming the main source of entertainment to distract the audience at home. All, however, on a single storyline.

The original meaning of the Decameron is lost to be interpreted in a more free, anarchic, and personal way. The show's creator, Kathleen Jordan, weaves her revised story, trying to extract its humorous and lustful vein but serving a much more modest and reticent dose. In the driving force of Boccaccio's tales, an ironic and sinful charge was released, which apparently Netflix was either not interested in or was not allowed to fully tap into. The series is much more conservative and far less risqué than how the poet himself saw his tales, infinitely less licentious than the stories that reached the ears of courts and bedrooms during the 14th century. Although on Netflix, to cite Bridgerton again, sex has been liberated, its depiction on the streaming window continues to be obscured by a semi-censorial lens that never makes it scandalous or truly lustful. Unable (and perhaps unwilling) to shock the viewers, despite contradicting the promise of the trailer and promotional material.

The Decameron aims to take the audience with it within the "four" walls of Sir Leonardo's vast estate—dead, but no one should know—to try to amuse themselves in the most fitting and appropriate manner, while intrigues and complications intertwine in a not particularly brilliant but at least enjoyable way. And from which emerges a reflection that does not shy away from addressing the positions of power and how between the rich and the poor there is an inevitable ongoing internal struggle, even when it is evident that everyone is destined to be equal in the face of death. The show, between a betrayal, a fling, and a marriage proposal, provides a group of homogeneous and exquisitely dressed performers, among whom the arrogant madness of Zosia Mamet and the unexpected resolve of Tony Hale stand out—she, daughter of David Mamet and a mean friend with a heart of gold in The Flight Attendant, he, a comedian with a decades-long career, unforgettable in the role of Buster Bluth in Arrested Development. But Tanya Reynolds also takes the lead, ready to jump from one series to another on the platform starting with Sex Education, though it is the development of the character arc of Karan Gill, in the role of Panfilo, that truly captivates. In the reconstruction of an Italy in the Cinecittà studios—reaching as far as the province of Viterbo—that draws inspiration from the classic to find ideas for contemporary series, The Decameron is like a summer story, fresh and limited in time: it distracts you from the heat, makes you laugh a little, and will be forgotten as soon as the season ends and the plague blisters are removed with a bit of makeup remover.