Timea Saghy/Netflix
Anthony Doerr’s All The Light We Cannot See has maintained critical renown since its 2014 release, selling more than 15 million copies and winning a Pulitzer Prize along the way. The story, which follows the lives of a girl who is blind and a German soldier in occupied France during World War II, has long felt primed for adaptation—and that’s exactly what’s happened, nearly a decade later, with a four-episode limited series on Netflix helmed by director Shawn Levy.
Unfortunately, a great book does not make for a great series. All The Light We Cannot See is let down by several strange decisions, from rough dialogue and poor pacing—neither of which were problems with the source material—that fail to do justice to the book so many have adored. But what’s especially bizarre is that one of the show’s most talented actors, Mark Ruffalo, delivers a shockingly terrible performance that derails the entire thing. And it all comes down to his accent.
When we first hear Ruffalo’s character Daniel, about 15 minutes into Episode 1, he’s showing his vision-impaired daughter Marie-Laure (Aria Mia Loberti) a tactile model of Paris. We know it is Paris, because the text on the screen tells us so—because no sounds coming out of Ruffalo’s mouth suggest we’re anywhere near France, let alone Paris. Daniel uses the model to help his daughter, the series’ main lead, understand the layout of the city. But Marie-Laure keeps going on tangents. “Let’s not get distracted by all the fancy places,” Daniel tells her.