General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Devotion, a Story of Love and Desire

Devotion, a Story of Love and Desire (Italian: Fedeltà) is a 2022 Italian drama miniseries produced for Netflix, adapted from Marco Missiroli's bestselling 2019 novel of the same name. Its six episodes follow Carlo and Margherita, a married couple in Milan whose relationship is destabilized when the husband's faithfulness is called into question and both spouses become tempted by other desires.¹^•² The series premiered on Netflix on February 14, 2022, with all six episodes released the same day.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Original title	Fedeltà (Italian for "Fidelity"); English title also rendered as Fidelity in the United States²^•⁵
Format	Six-episode Italian-language miniseries, about 40 minutes per episode, rated TV-MA⁴^•⁶
Premiere	February 14, 2022, on Netflix; status ended after one season³^•⁵
Source	Marco Missiroli's 2019 novel Fedeltà, a number one bestseller in Italy, winner of the Strega Prize Giovani 2019 and finalist for the 73rd Strega Prize³
Directors	Andrea Molaioli and Stefano Cipani⁷
Writers	Alessandro Fabbri, Elisa Amoruso, and Laura Colella⁷
Production	BiBi Film; budget €8,339,583.11⁷

Spoilers

Premise and characters

Carlo Pentecoste, played by Michele Riondino, is a writer in his forties, author of a successful novel, who teaches at a well-known writing school in Milan. His wife Margherita Verna, played by Lucrezia Guidone, is an architect who gave up her ambitions as an interior designer for a quieter life as a real-estate agent. The suspicion that Carlo has drifted toward a twenty-year-old student sets off tension that derails the couple in a sequence of missteps.⁸

The inciting incident comes at the end of the first episode, when something happens between Carlo and his student Sofia Casadei (Carolina Sala) in a bathroom; both insist nothing occurred, but the event plants the seed of doubt in Margherita's mind, followed by jealousy and uncertainty. In parallel, Margherita is drawn to Andrea (Leonardo Pazzagli), her physiotherapist, whom she sees for a chronic condition.⁴^•⁹ The supporting cast includes Maria Paiato as Anna Verna, Maurizio Donadoni as Paolo Pentecoste, Maurizio Lastrico as Marco, Sara Lazzaro as Giulia, Gianluca Gobbi as Luca, and Elisa Di Eusanio as Eva.⁷

The story's framing question, posed in the teaser, is whether fidelity is something owed to others or to oneself.³ The series is a work of fiction, not an adaptation of real events, though it draws on recognizable dynamics of jealousy, betrayal, love, and insecurity in a marriage.¹⁰

Adaptation from the novel

The screenplay, led by head writer Alessandro Fabbri with Elisa Amoruso and Laura Colella, departs from Missiroli's novel at many points, retaining mainly the foundations and the spine of the story; the Hungarian-language review in Sorozatjunkie judged the adaptation to have improved on the source in several respects. Missiroli himself did not take part in the writing, though he appears briefly in a cameo as himself, a Strega Giovani-winning novelist, at a symposium.⁹^•¹¹

The adaptation also shifts the novel's emphasis. Where the book relies on internal monologue and a slower, more contemplative treatment of its characters' inner lives, the series translates these into dialogue and visual shorthand, streamlines the protagonists' motivations, and compresses or omits subplots. Most notably, the ending differs in tone: Missiroli's conclusion leaves lingering questions about faithfulness and desire, while the series tends toward resolution.¹² Maurizio Porro's review in Corriere della Sera argued that little of the author's cool, quasi-scientific analysis of the concept of fidelity survives the transfer, giving the series a score of 5.¹¹

Production and setting

The miniseries was produced by BiBi Film, with Angelo Barbagallo, Matilde Barbagallo, Gianfranco Barbagallo, and Maria Panicucci as producers, and was filmed mainly in Milan, with additional shooting in Rimini and Rome.²^•³ Recognizable Milan locations include Parco Sempione, San Babila, the Duomo, the towers of Piazza della Repubblica and Gae Aulenti, City Life, Terrazza Martini, and the Navigli.² Gian Enrico Bianchi (credited as Gogò Bianchi) served as director of photography, Teho Teardo composed the score, and Lorenzo Peluso edited.⁷^•⁸ The soundtrack includes the original song "Verosimile," performed by Arisa and written by Stefano Cipani, Arisa, and Mario Fanizzi, who also produced it; Cipani described it as intended to represent the emotions and disruptive force of the book.²

Netflix scheduled the release for Valentine's Day, February 14, 2022, at 8:00 AM GMT in the United States.¹³ Italian commentary noted the irony of launching a drama about betrayal on that date.¹⁴

Reception

Audience and critical scores were middling. IMDb lists 6.4/10 and The Movie Database 63/100.¹⁵ Rotten Tomatoes shows an 85% Tomatometer from only two reviews, with fewer than 50 audience ratings.⁴ MYmovies.it recorded an aggregate of 2.45 out of 5 across six reviews.¹⁶

Italian critics were divided. Wired Italia praised the cast and a script that does justice to the feelings it depicts, reading the series as a reflection on fidelity as both the glue of bourgeois convention and a cage in which daily instincts and intimate insecurities collide.¹⁷ BadTaste.it found the treatment of fidelity interesting but judged the secondary characters and situations thin and some plot turns unconvincing.¹⁸ The CEI national film evaluation commission described the series as complex, problematic, and suited to debate, crediting the direction and lead performances while finding the secondary storylines weaker.⁸

English-language reviews were similarly mixed. The Review Geek gave the season 6/10, calling it "a show of moments" with strong scenes undermined by pacing problems in the middle episodes and a dissonant use of pop music over dramatic montages, and comparing it unfavorably in approach to HBO's Scenes from a Marriage.¹⁹ Ready Steady Cut's reviewer called it "undoubtedly a brilliant drama about a faltering marriage" while doubting it was a good Valentine's Day watch.⁴ Screenwise placed it in a middling band, noting that its generic English title leads parents to confuse it with the 2022 American war film Devotion about Navy fighter pilots.²⁰

International titles and availability

The series circulated under several localized titles: Fedeltà (Italian), Treue (German), Αφοσίωση (Greek), Fidelidad (Spanish), Chaque fidélité (French), Wierność (Polish), and Fideli (Romanian), with the worldwide English title Devotion, a Story of Love and Desire and Fidelity used in the United States.⁷^•⁵ It remained available on Netflix in Italy and many other countries, with audio tracks in Italian, English, French, German, and Spanish, among others, and an English dub recorded in the United States with Mark Lewis as Carlo and Annie Wersching as Margherita.²¹^•²²

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026