‘The Law According to Lidia Poët’ Is Nimbly Executed

By Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

It’s frustratingly ironic to think that the justice system deemed women unworthy of being lawyers (among other professions) until as recently as 1920s in a country like England, home to one of the most famous woman monarch in the world. It was only in 1922 that Helena Normanton gained the distinction of becoming the first woman barrister in the UK. Two years prior to that, another lady was making history in Italy – 65-year-old Lidia Poët was finally recognized as a lawyer in 1920, despite getting her law degree in 1881 and being inscribed in the roll of lawyers in 1883.

The 2023 Netflix show “The Law According to Lidia Poët” honours Italy’s first woman lawyer and takes a lot of fictional liberties to portray the trailblazer’s struggles and adventures. Obviously.  Created by Guido Iuculano and Davide Orsini, the six-part series stars Matilda De Angelis as the young Lidia and unfolds in the 1880s. In the series, an ambitious Lidia fights poor clients, faces obnoxiously patriarchal men at every turn, loses her license to practice, but undeterred, she becomes an assistant to her older Lawyer brother Enrico Poët (Pier Luigi Pasino) and proxy fights his cases. A journalist called Jacopo Barberis (Eduardo Scarpetta) becomes one of her most trusted ally as she chooses to battle for clients who’d seem like a ‘lost cause’ to most.

Episode one starts with an intriguing classical musical flourish, and immediately reminded me of the Austrian series ‘Die Kaiserin’, and while the sets in “The Law According to Lidia Poët” aren’t as grand, they exude a fascinating old-world charm. The creators need to be lauded for the background score, there’s a lot of post 2000s music, the sound is distinctly modern-rock, but it serves as a clever allusion to their protagonist, who was far ahead of her times.

Viewers are pulled into the first case of the show – a ballerina’s death, which is pinned on a stalker-like admirer. Each of the six episodes serve as stand-alone stories, because they are all different cases, which is a great asset to this series since viewers can just watch one episode per day and not feel incomplete. Although, Lidia’s personal equations with the regular characters in the show do see progress throughout the episodes.

Except for a few scenes where Matilda De Angelis seemed a too young as Lidia Poët, she is charmingly confident as her country’s first barrister. Matilda makes the viewers feel her silent suffocation as Lidia is ridiculed, overlooked, and underestimated simply because she is a woman. Even though the show never gets too dramatic, Matilda De Angelis pulls off some of the subtle emotional scenes with a lot of grace and charm. Pier Luigi Pasino is amusing as her sexist older brother, who doesn’t respect his sister much and thinks of her passion for law as some rebellious trifle; however, there’s a slow but heartening change in his character as the siblings work together on cases. I wasn’t a fan of journalist Jacopo, or of some of the romantic sub-plots that find their way in the series.

As far as the criminal cases that Lidia fights are concerned, most of them were on the simpler side, considering it’s the 1880s and murderers didn’t take extraordinary measures to keep their tracks clean. Thriller and mystery fans might not necessarily be too impressed with the show, but keeping the timeline in mind, the series is largely satisfactory and worth a watch.

It’s a 7.5/10 from me. Stream the series on Netflix.