All the Light We Cannot See Review: Netflix Miniseries Dims the Light of the Beloved Novel

Can a series do both too much and too little at the same time? It sounds impossible, and yet here comes All the Light We Cannot See. It's a tall order to adapt any novel for the screen — but adapting a beloved, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that is not only told non-linearly, but spends a lot of time with characters' internal thoughts and is overflowing with gorgeous, affecting prose? That's a lot of hurdles right there. Netflix's four-episode limited series adaptation of Anthony Doerr's 2014 novel doesn't clear them all. 

All the Light We Cannot See, developed and written by Steven Knight and directed by Shawn Levy, tells the story of Marie-Laure LeBlanc (newcomer Aria Mia Loberti). Marie-Laure is a young blind girl trying to survive in the coastal French town of Saint-Malo during the Nazi occupation while her father, Daniel (Mark Ruffalo), attempts to keep a precious and possibly cursed stone from the Museum of Natural History in Paris out of the hands of the Third Reich. Once they move in with Daniel's recluse uncle, Etienne (Hugh Laurie), and Etienne's sister, Madame Manec (Marion Bailey), they become part of the resistance in Saint-Malo, gathering information on German troop movements and giving them to Etienne to pass along by way of his very much forbidden radio in his attic. It's this radio that connects Marie-Laure with Werner Pfennig (Louis Hofmann), an orphan who was forced into the Nazi army because of his skills with radios and detecting radio frequencies. As the Americans bomb Saint-Malo in hopes of liberating the city, Marie and Werner's lives intersect in unexpected ways. 

6.0

All the Light We Cannot See

at Netflix

Like

• Newcomer Aria Mia Loberti gives a winning performance
• Hugh Laurie can do no wrong
• It's gorgeously cinematic

Dislike

• Inadequate character and plot development make a complicated story feel too simplistic
• The pacing feels off and zaps the momentum of the plot
• Emotional payoffs are lacking

The novel says a lot about war, hope, connection, and the complicated characters experiencing them all, but in stripping the over 500 page book down to four hours, much of the nuance of Doerr's sprawling story is lost. The series attempts to keep many of the characters and storylines from the novel in play, but the changes made to simplify them for the sake of time mostly read as underdeveloped or lacking subtlety. The impulse to add more action to a story being told in a visual medium makes complete sense, but that additional action, paired with keeping the novel's time-hopping structure, only leads to pacing issues. 

Take, for instance, the big bad of the series — Reinhold von Rumpel (Lars Eidinger), a cartoonishly villainous high-ranking member of the German army with an affinity for monologues full of exposition — who is hunting down the jewel (known as the Sea of Flames) in the LeBlancs' possession and doing whatever it takes to track down Marie in Saint-Malo. A conflict that could provide some real cat-and-mouse tension is completely zapped of energy when von Rumpel and Marie collide in the first episode before their major one-on-one in the finale. There are several of these premature meetings or reveals in the series that mess with the momentum of the story, and thus the emotional payoff. It's a war story that looks gorgeously cinematic, but with the way some character arcs get so scrambled, it's missing that emotional oomph.

That's not to say that some scenes won't bring you to tears. Honestly, just looking at Hugh Laurie in his role might do the trick. He's lovely as Etienne, a World War I vet with PTSD so damaging he hasn't left his sister's house in 20 years, who discovers a second chance through his relationship with Marie. When Laurie's eyes well up with tears, all of our eyes well up (it cannot be just me) — even if his character is one of those done dirty by a premature reveal. But, of course, the most impactful performance belongs to Loberti as Marie. Loberti was about to pursue her PhD when she answered a casting call for the role, and her lack of previous acting experience makes the fact that she so believably conveys Marie's dueling fear and resilience even more impressive. She is the heart of the show, but her performance never veers into schlock. 

It makes you wish the finished product rose to her level. The series lacks a real gut-punch of emotions, which was most definitely not the case with the novel. In some ways, it strays too far from the source material, and in others, it perhaps stays too close (maybe the momentum-killing time-hopping wasn't the best idea for the screen?). It's not that All the Light We Cannot See is bad; it's a fine way to spend four hours. It's just that there was so much potential for the emotions to be more heightened, the characters to be more complicated and interesting, and the story to be more thought-provoking. The show could have been much more than just fine.

Premieres: Thursday, Nov. 2 on Netflix
Who's in it: Aria Mia Loberti, Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, Louis Hofmann, Lars Eidinger
Who's behind it: Steven Knight (developer/writer), Shawn Levy (director)
For fans of: All the Light We Cannot See (the novel), stellar debut performances, crying about Hugh Laurie
How many episodes we watched: 4 of 4