This Holocaust drama is lent poignancy by the current rise in antisemitism. But it contains little new, is full of clunky dialogue – and its plot is an exhausting exercise in box-ticking
It’s lent poignancy by the current rise in antisemitism. But it contains little new, is full of clunky dialogue – and its plot is an exhausting exercise in box-ticking, the eight-part drama We Were the Lucky Ones, is a harrowing one. To watch it at a time when antisemitism is on the rise and some of our own most racist public figures are returning to the political stage only gives it extra emotional torque.
As members of the family gather round the table, the cranking noise of the narrative engine begins. Each son, daughter and significant other is assigned a characteristic and a circumstance or two. Younger daughter Halina is vivacious, wilful and hungry for all the opportunities her future has to offer.
Where We Were the Lucky Ones scores is in its depiction – mostly via Halina – of the often overlooked Jewish resistance to German takeover and Nazi horrors, dismantling the conventional, media-smoothed image of Jewish people as passive victims of the evil that threatened to sweep them away.
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