“All the Light We Cannot See” seemed to promise the world but instead, it handed us a mixed bag of glow sticks that refused to light up in the night. With a promising cast, including stars like Hugh Laurie, Mark Ruffalo, alongside the richness of native German accents painting wartime narratives and a riveting storyline, it was a canvas ripe for masterful storytelling.
Yet, even with the promising blend, the series stumbled like a klutzy ballerina, repeatedly tripping over cringe-worthy clichés and scenes as believable as a lion riding a giraffe. Werner's coerced journey starting at an elite national political institute of education, compared to Marie-Laure's poignant blindness, hinted at the series potential.
Both of them having listened to a professor talking about hope in times of darkness on shortwave 13.10, their intertwining paths, illuminated by the setting of an in many ways chaotic era, could've showed, us watchers, real examples of human resilience.
Instead, amidst Uncle Etienne's sentimental flashbacks resembling syrupy interludes in a scary thriller, the narrative seemed to lose its footing, stumbling into melodrama when all you wanted to see was depth and realistic storylines .
The overly long chase for the mystical "Sea of Flames" diamond that Marie’s father, a worker of the museum, tried to hide unfolded like a childish bedtime story turned wrong. Standartenführer Reinhold von Rumpel's pursuit of finding Marie, because he thought she possessed the diamond, felt less like a realistic and interesting journey and more like an adventure from a children's story.
And then, the kiss! Werner and Marie's kiss felt as real as a horse climbing a tree—a German lad and a blind French girl, one moment foes, the next star-crossed lovers?
Sure, love knows no boundaries, but a little more skepticism from Marie might've saved this from feeling like a sugar-coated fantasy. Two worlds colliding during WW2, yes, but the impact felt more scripted than real. Marie's acceptance of Werner seemed more a plot convenience than an emotionally resonant twist in my opinion.
“All the Light We Cannot See” had all the ingredients of an amazing series, but amidst its twisting turns, it resembled more a firework fizzling out too soon, leaving behind a residue of unfulfilled promise and potential. In this series of history and fiction, where the bright sparks struggled against the overshadowing clouds of unrealness and cringe-worthy clichés, perhaps the unseen light it was trying to illuminate got lost in its own brilliance.