REVIEW: "All the Light We Cannot See" Illuminates the Ordinary.

I've often said that great books rarely make great movies. Have you ever seen an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel turned into a great film? And no. Baz Luhrmann's 2013 version with Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't make the cut. Not even the 1974 version with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. Usually, it's a mediocre piece of pulp fiction, like Mario Puzo's The Godfather that, in the hands of a visionary like Francis Ford Coppola, is elevated to a work of art.

So I was a bit skeptical when I read that Anthony Doerr's 2014 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, All the Light We Cannot See was dropping on Netflix as a mini-series. Granted, the TV adaptation featured familiar, competent actors like Hugh Laurie and Mark Ruffalo, cast a legally blind actress (Aria Mia Loberti) in the pivotal role of Marie-Laure LeBlanc, and introduced - to American audiences - Louis Hofmann as the conflicted German soldier recruit, Werner Pfennig. In addition to a promising cast, use of the mini-series format seemed like the appropriate option, given that the novel involves multiple characters and a complex plot. Having more time to tell Doerr's story might avoid the usual Hollywood traps: condensing too much detail into mush and/or making significant changes that potentially alter the intent or outcome. I once remember seeing an interview with the writer Tom Clancy who admitted that, once an author signs away the book rights to a film company, control over the outcome is totally relinquished.

Since post-Thanksgiving week is one with few new theatrical release options - I'm not planning to review Wish, and I'm still working on the establishing the proper mindset to see the grisly bloodletting in Napoleon - so, with an inch or so of snow outside and sub-freezing temps, I decided to hunker down and give Light a look. I was not disappointed, though, if you've read the book, there are some differences.

Doerr's historical novel takes place during World War II and alternatingly tells parallel stories of Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a young girl living in Paris with her father Daniel (Mark Ruffalo), who is master locksmith at the Museum of Nature History there, and Werner Pfennig, an orphan living with his sister in Zollverein, Germany, who has exceptional skill making and repairing radios.

While living in Paris, Marie has heard stories of the Sea of Flames diamond which was reportedly hidden in the Museum and said to give immortality while bringing great misfortune to those around its owner. Daniel scoffs at the legend, saying that he is a man of science, not superstition. Each night, Marie listens to a radio broadcast given by "The Professor," an enigmatic, disembodied voice transmitted from frequency 1310, but one that is reassuring in his stories about understanding nature and the world through science. Miles away in a German orphanage, Werner listens to the same program.

When Germany invades Paris in 1940, Daniel (who organized the smuggling of valuables out of the Museum as they Nazi's invaded and secretly possesses the diamond) and Marie flee to Saint-Melo where they take refuge with her great-uncle, Etienne (Hugh Laurie) and his housekeeper Madame Manec (Marion Bailey). Werner is recruited by the Nazi's to identify Allied radio messages and decipher the codes. When Daniel leaves under the guise of finding a safe hiding place for the diamond, he does not return as planned and, a year later, Marie is on her own in Saint-Malo, reading excerpts from Jules Verne's 20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea to listeners, including Werner, on the 1310 frequency. These excerpts are really coded messages created by Etienne who, along with Madame Manec, works for the French Resistance.

Like the novel, the mini-series is told in nonlinear fashion, which adds to the intrigue and mystery of the diamond as well as the anticipated intersection of Marie and Werner's stories within the context of the German occupation of France and its eventual liberation by American forces in 1944.

Unlike the novel - and given the nature of the mini-series format - much of the backstory (especially Werner's) is condensed to fit the four hour-long installments. Doerr incorporated a kind of sense memory into many of his passages and was praised by critics for his ability to capture "sensory details" and emotions, along with a keen attention to science and ethics.

What the mini-series isn't missing is the attention to historical detail, including a meticulously reconstructed set to represent Saint-Malo during WWII. Director Shawn Levy painstakingly searched for locations that were reminiscent of Paris in the 1940s, finally settling on Budapest as a stand-in for the City of Lights. Everything - from the radio components Werner uses to Mme. Manec's kitchen - accurately represents the tools and utensils of the day, but also convey a sense of sacrifice and scarcity where people made do with what was available in order to survive. In a great nod to the women involved in the French Resistance, Daniel is taken to meet the Resistance leaders who will help him: it is Mme. Manec and several of her friends, an older group of very intelligent, politically astute woman. In reality, woman comprised about 20% of the French Resistance membership.

What stood out for me were the many small acts of kindness shown: the beautiful omelet Mme. Manec makes for a hungry Marie, the loving way Daniel allows the then six-year-old Marie to listen to her beloved "Professor" late into the night because it reassures her, the simple message Werner sends to his sister to let her know, after years of separation, he is okay.

In the broader history of the world, these are ordinary, inconsequential people, but together their work and behavior form a kind of optimism in the midst of war, one that promises hope and light for the future. Doerr has said he is fascinated by the ways every person contributes to the world, which often go unnoticed by us all.

In retelling a WWII story, of course, the Nazi's are easy villains, and the actors who play them definitely look the part: dark-haired, shifty-eyed, imposing, untrustworthy and selfish. The primary villain is a Reinhold von Rumpel (Lars Eldinger), who is ill with a suspected terminal disease (and therefore desperate to possess the diamond), and whose appearance is a cross between Hitler and Stellan Skarsgård. In contrast, Werner is the fresh-faced, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan race Hitler passionately envisioned as leaders in his utopian world: “Everything we admire on this earth today—science and art, technology and inventions—is only the creative product of a few peoples and originally perhaps one race [the 'Aryans']," he wrote in 1925's Mein Kampf.

Unfortunately, Werner is a reluctant participant in Hitler's army, but Louis Hofmann's face reminded me of another young SS-prospect from 1971's Cabaret. In an at-first benign scene that takes place at an outdoor restaurant somewhere in the German countryside, a young man stands up and begins to sing the anthemic, "Tomorrow Belongs to Me." At first, all you see is his clear, rosy-cheeked face, blonde hair, blue eyes... until the camera pans wide to show the swastika on his sleeve. The scene turns chilling, the music sounds more foreboding, even evil, and the emotion on the faces of the restaurant patrons is something I'll never forget.

In All the Light We Cannot See, Werner's purity - his "inner light" is shown on his face, in his eyes, in his careful maneuvers. Even when he kills (as he does a comrade who figures out he is listening to coded messages on the radio), Werner remains conscious and committed to finding the young woman on frequency 1310 (Marie) whose voice has captured his interest and maybe his heart. It's also not coincidental that Werner's surname - Pfennig - means "penny" in German, perhaps, another indication that, although a genius with technology, he is an orphan and arguably, of little value, at least, on the surface.

Most of the remaining changes are not so much substantive as they are designed to create a more cohesive narrative with closure for viewers. Werner and Marie have a moment in the mini-series that does not exist in the novel (re: more than a passing encounter) - which apparently pleased fans of the book who wanted more of an in-person connection than existed in the book. Screenwriter Steven Knight manages to avoid a clichéd meeting between the two by finding the connection that mattered most to them: the "Professor's" radio broadcasts. It is a heartfelt and poignant moment, one in which the young survivors experience and share the Professor's mantra: "The most important light is all the light we cannot see."

The parallel lives of Werner and Marie that touch all too briefly become representations of all those people who survive war, personal crisis and pain. Their collective stories are what keeps the world moving, their success what keeps hope alive. But All the Light We Cannot See is more than a parable of the Second World War. Its messages and themes about war, ethics and how we live our lives is applicable today. Maybe - if there's a lesson here - it's that we should more intentionally take notice of all the little things that otherwise ordinary people do, the many who go about their daily lives making a difference, guided by an inner light we all possess but few often take the time to see.