World War II rages. It is 1944, and Marie, a young woman from Paris, hides in her aunts' seaside home in Saint-Malo, Brittany, far from her father. From there she breaks Hitler's law, broadcasting coded radio messages to the Allies. The girl reads using Braille—Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea—and through her transmissions, the Americans learn which targets to attack to liberate occupied cities and finally win the war.
All the Light We Cannot See, a four-episode Netflix miniseries, tells a great story. Through Marie, played by debut actress Aria Mia Loberti, it reveals that profound truths often hide behind what we take for granted. Marie does more than relay coded messages; she exemplifies the power of self-belief. Born with a degenerative eye disease, she is completely blind, yet she "has never lived in darkness."
She has developed her sense of touch so acutely that her fingers serve as eyes. Her hearing, smell, and tactile awareness allow her to navigate the city's most unexpected corners—and to escape danger. Marie, supported from the start by a family that believed in her, has learned that what truly matters is the light we cannot see.
The miniseries, directed by Shawn Levy (who helmed Stranger Things) and written by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders), invites viewers to look beyond surface appearances and challenge our prejudices. Adapted from Anthony Doerr's Pulitzer Prize–winning novel (2015), the cast includes Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, Lars Eidinger, Marion Bailey, Andrea Deck, Rhashan Stone, and Nell Sutton (who plays young Marie and is herself visually impaired). Beyond its focus on visual disability—a subject too often ignored by cinema—All the Light We Cannot See weaves history with mystery.
The narrative also follows Nazi officer Reinhold von Rumpel's hunt for a precious, cursed gemstone held by Marie's father, and the story of Werner Pfenning (Louis Hofmann), a young German orphan drafted by the Third Reich to intercept radio messages from the French Resistance. As past and present collide, the characters' lives unexpectedly cross. Some encounters bring luck and salvation; others unearth only horror.
Though not perfectly faithful to the novel (published in Italy by Rizzoli), the series is a lyrical, melancholic, and deeply moving account of war's mad and devastating consequences—including the looting of priceless artworks and cultural treasures—and of the bond between a solitary father and his only daughter. It explores love and filial ties, displacement from homeland and origins, the blindness of those who believe they can see, and the true light that preserves the innocence of so many others. The series is absolutely worth watching. Viewing it brings us out of darkness, into light.