‘Transatlantic’ Review: Netflix’s Glossy but Superficial Account of a World War II Rescue Network
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Netflix’s new limited series Transatlantic is the inversion of the streamer’s recent Elvis-as-animated-spy comedy Agent Elvis.
With Agent Elvis, it was: Come for the silly premise, genre hijinks and a lovable (thoroughly historically accurate) masturbating chimpanzee, stay for the surprisingly well-researched exploration of 1960s and ’70s esoterica.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
With Transatlantic, I came for what is a spectacular, perhaps under-known corner of history, with tendrils into 1930s and ’40s European cultural esoterica, and I was left with genre hijinks, surrealist wackiness and a lovable (thoroughly historically accurate) dog.
Take that as you will.
If Transatlantic arrived on Netflix with a guarantee that every viewer who tuned in would promptly go and learn more about the story of Varian Fry, Mary Jayne Gold and the Villa Air-Bel, I would give it a strong recommendation.
The series, which hails from Unorthodox co-creator Anna Winger and Daniel Handler, is a frothy adventure yarn that steers into its Classical Hollywood-style romanticism more than any Holocaust-adjacent darkness. It’s lighter on its feet and more generally entertaining than any summary of the subject matter might lead you to expect. But since all you come away from Transatlantic with is a superficial understanding of the subject matter — the tip of the tip of the iceberg and perhaps not even that — it’s easy to feel that’s something, but hard to feel like it’s enough.
I said that the story of Varian Fry, Mary Jayne Gold and the Villa Air-Bel was little known, but that isn’t the same as “unknown.” It was featured — more than a footnote, but less than a chapter — in PBS’ essential documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust and has been the subject of multiple well-researched books. Transatlantic uses Julie Arranger’s The Flight Portfolio — a well-researched novel inspired by the story — as its source and that sourcing in turn is credited here only as “inspired by.” So it’s “inspired by” something “inspired by” the truth. And it shows!
The series begins in Marseille in 1940. Former journalist Varian Fry (Cory Michael Smith) is working as part of the Emergency Rescue Committee, an organization dedicated to getting a small selection of European writers, authors and thinkers out of France before it falls completely to the Nazis. For the most part, Fry is working within the bureaucratic system, looking to secure fully legal visas and transportation, without upsetting the delicate balance of American neutrality, represented here by Corey Stoll as Consul Graham Patterson.
Lending a hand is Mary Jayne Gold (Gillian Jacobs), a Chicago heiress who has decided to use her father’s money to help these refugees in any way necessary. If Fry is initially determined to paint within the legal lines, Gold and her wire fox terrier Dagobert are more willing to bribe, seduce and do whatever’s necessary.
Over seven episodes running mostly under 50 minutes and covering no clear time frame that I could explain, Fry and Gold learn that they must expand their idea of what is possible and necessary. They are aided by an assortment of real and composite figures, including on-the-run resistance fighter Albert (Lucas Englander), American attaché Hiram Bingham (Luke Thompson), courageous Lisa Fittko (Deleila Piasko), North African hotel concierge Paul (Ralph Amoussou) and Thomas (Amit Rahav), a Brit with a connection to Fry’s past.
Thomas’ involvement brings everybody to the rundown chateau called the Villa Air-Bel, which for a brief time became a waystation for a who’s who of fleeing cultural luminaries.
Transatlantic alternates between aspiring to be Nazi Resistance Fighting for Dummies and Surrealism for Dummies, more successfully as the former and most amusingly and infuriatingly as the latter.
Casablanca is, was and always will be the pinnacle of banter-driven romantic thrillers about whether or not people have the proper papers to get out of a war-torn country. You can see its influence in Winger and Hendler’s structure, characterizations and the bittersweet arc of the season, though very rarely in its dialogue. In lieu of the dialogue that is essential to why Casablanca remains one of the most rewatchable movies ever made, Transatlantic mirrors that film’s sense of fun with an almost episode-by-episode series of break-outs, escapes and mini-heists. There are preening Nazis, sniveling French collaborators and a stream of noble and nefarious rogues.
I spend so many reviews complaining that things are too padded and too long, so let me complain here that Transatlantic is too short. Some of the episodic adventures are diverting, but none makes a real impact. Nor did I find any of the romances forged against this dangerous backdrop to be worth an emotional investment. But it’s never less than diverting.
It all plays out against Marseille locations, shot for impeccably polished tourist grandeur rather than gritty terror. The show is in such a rush and the timeline so compacted that it’s barely possible to understand what Fry and Gold were doing, much less to get any sense of the true scope of the operation which, as seen in the series, marginalizes people like Bingham and erases too many figures to count, starting with the American artist Miriam Davenport.
Transatlantic takes advantage of Jacobs’ unavoidably modern affect as a way to underline a thesis about Gold as a modern woman trying to find her voice in a period setting. Jacobs completely looks the part of a Warner Bros. contract player circa 1940 — extra kudos to Justine Seymour’s costumes — and she’s integral to providing some of the humor that would only have been implied on the page, especially as relates to the instantly adorable Dagobert.
The show is much more comfortable with Gold’s voice and characterization than that of Fry, leaning into revelations about his sexuality without connecting that to anything about his past or the extreme actions he’s taking in the present. Smith at least plays that uncertainty as heroic discomfort and makes it plausible. Neither has much chemistry with their respective love interests, but they have great scenes together and with Stoll, who embodies the callous, smarmy obviousness of American isolationism in that moment.
Among the supporting revolutionaries, Piasco and Amoussou come the closest to giving their characters depth.
Nobody is nearly as successful or as lucky when it comes to dimensionalizing the various refugees, most of whom receive exclusively name-drop treatment. If you know who Walter Benjamin (Moritz Bleibtreu) is, you’re treated to one scene in which somebody summarizes The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction and he explains Tikkun olam. It isn’t much but it’s far more explanation for his centrality than whatever the show does with the likes of Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall and Marcel Duchamp.
There are some quirky moments with the various surrealists — André Breton, Max Ernst and Hans Bellmer get the greatest spotlight — mooning around the Villa, saying bizarre things and celebrating holidays in weird ways. But at most Transatlantic will inspire visits to Wikipedia instead of providing information on its own.
Though the influence of surrealism is rarely felt within the actual text of the series, the closing credits, shot in grainy black-and-white, capture an intersection of surrealism and Weimar German Expressionism in a brief but delightfully playful way. The series could have used more of that eccentricity and more of the flavor of the black-and-white opening scene, an acknowledgment and evocation of the art of the period instead of a commitment to modern accessibility.
Will that accessibility result in viewers seeking out additional information, to realize the individual ways the surrealists were significant and to learn how much bigger and more important the work of Fry and Gold was than what is, at most, a snapshot here? I hope so. I can credit Transatlantic for its digestibility, while lamenting the great series that could have been made about this moment and this setting. This is not it.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
