Schmaltzy Netflix series misses the mark
Mark Ruffalo is missing in action in this adaptation of Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer-winning World War II romance.
The critics have had a field day with this one since its release last month – and they are right.
This four-part version of the best-selling book is not good. In fact, at times, it is downright awful.
Which is not to say that many won’t enjoy the World War II story set in occupied France.
That’s because All the Light We Cannot See pushes our buttons for reactions that come even as we see the melodrama, hear the over-the-top score, and wince at the cliches.
Indeed the show, which is nicely shot at least, was a hit for Netflix in the days after its launch: the all-star cast and the cult following around the book by Anthony Doerr (15 million copies sold, and counting) saw to that.
For those of us who have not read the 2014 book, the television version is a chance to catch up with this story about the darkness and lightness of humanity stretched to breaking point by war. It’s not a particularly original idea of resistance against evil but it seems much of the nuance of the original has been lost in the television telling.
Even if you come to it clean, without Doerr’s version in your head, you will find this a bit of a slog — although it does get better in episode three, if you can hang in that far. Its problems range from sudden and obvious plot explainers to flat performances by actors who really should know better. The players are not helped by a script that tries hard to be profound but ends up as schmaltzy.
The worst offender, surprisingly, is Mark Ruffalo who would look more comfortable swallowing nails than acting in this one. Miscast as Daniel LeBlanc, the museum locksmith father of the blind heroine of the story, one Marie-Laure (Aria Mia Loberti), Ruffalo shows none of the intelligence he has brought to other roles (Spotlight, Foxcatcher). Then again, pretty well everyone around him, including Hugh Laurie as Marie-Laure’s uncle Etienne, fails to nail it this time.
The depiction of those German baddies is beyond bad with actors forced to deliver lines and attitudes that might have worked as Allied propaganda in 1944 but are simply laughable today.
The sweet-faced Loberti, who is legally blind, does a good job, as does Nell Sutton, playing Marie-Laure as a child. Sutton is one of the delights of the series. She too is legally blind.
The story is set in the besieged town of Saint-Malo in Brittany, where Allied and German forces engaged in a fierce battle towards the end of 1944, and some scenes were shot there, as well as elsewhere in France and in Hungary.
Marie-Laure may be blind, but she is doing her bit for the resistance, broadcasting messages of hope (and secret codes) via short-wave radio while holed up in a house in the town. She’s in the sights of the Germans who reckon she, as well as passing messages to the Americans, knows where a precious jewel is hidden. (Yes, it does feel a bit Secret Seven at times.)
Listening in as she reads chapters of the (apparently code-heavy) Jules Verne’s classic, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, is the one German we are allowed to relate to. Also holed up in Saint-Malo, the orphaned and disaffected Werner (Louis Hofmann) identifies with Marie-Laure and opts to protect her.
All of this is about good and evil but the script by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) and the tone chosen by director Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) have created a show that just misses the mark.
And let’s not get started on the accents.
Sometimes a film adaptation makes us want to rush to the bookstore to buy a copy of the original, or pull it down from the shelf to re-read.
While 15 million readers and a swag of prizes, including the Pulitzer, suggest that All the Light We Cannot See is worth a read, I’m not so sure. Missing nuance is one thing, but then again, the Netflix team were working off the basic plot and themes of the original ...
Perhaps we should not be surprised by the gap between the two versions: It’s rare for a film or television show to measure up to the book on which it is based and far more common for the filmed version to fall short even if it works as a stand-alone.
Take the 2009 novel Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin. This story of migration, loss, love, ambivalence and the impossible choices we sometimes face, was nicely filmed in 2015 off a script by the clever wordsmith Nick Hornby.
Wrongly described by some as a romantic period drama, it is a subtle look at a familiar story of a young Irish girl who goes to the new world of America and confronts a new set of values and meaning.
It’s an excellent film but if you haven’t read the book, especially its final rendering of the decision made by the heroine to choose her American over her Irish love, you are missing out. The film simply can’t capture the psychological conflicts presented by Toibin, even though it’s worth revisiting.
Another adaptation worth the time is The Line of Beauty, the 2006 BBC three-parter based on the acclaimed 2004 novel by Alan Hollinghurst.
Neither the book nor the show have dated, even though they cover the very specific culture and politics of Thatcher’s 1980s Britain. It’s a mark of the series writer, Andrew Davies, and director Saul Dibb – who this year delivered the excellent, The Sixth Commandment – that it has worn so well.
Then again, they had first-class material to work with in Hollinghurst’s piece.
All the Light We Cannot See is streaming on Netflix; Brooklyn is available on Binge, ABC iView and Foxtel, and can be
purchased on other platforms, The Line of Beauty is available on ABC iview.
