A SMALL LIGHT Shines So Bright

 

Jeri Jacquin

Currently available from National Geographic Studios and ABC Signature in a limited series is the story of the Frank family and another part of the story from the view of A SMALL LIGHT.

Miep Gies (Bel Powley) was born in Austria but was adopted by a family in Holland. It is 1940 and she loves her family but they see she is not married and without a job and they are worried about her. That’s when Otto Frank (Liev Schreiber) comes into her life and a job that she wasn’t even qualified for happens.

Miep becomes close to the Frank family and enjoys the company of Edith (Amira Casar), Anne (Billie Boullet) and Margot (Ashley Brooke). She also meets Jan (Joe Cole) and finally makes the second thing her parents are worried about happen – she is married. Everything is going well for Miep even though things are a bit strange with the war begun by Hitler.

One afternoon in 1942, Mr. Frank asks Miep to come into the office to talk. He tells her that leaving Germany was for the protection of his family and now fears that he did not go further enough away. He asks that Miep help him to go into hiding with his family and she does not hesitate to agree. The story is that the Frank family has gone to Switzerland.

The plan is made for the Frank family to move into the upstairs small loft that was not being used and that no one knows about. During the day the family would have to remain silent and quietly move about at night. Miep is all in on the plans to get everyone to the loft before the Nazi’s arrive. Helping from the office as well is typist Tess (Eleanor Tomlinson) and Victor Kugler (Nicholas Burns).

Also going into hiding is Hermann Van Pels (Andy Nyman), wife Auguste (Caroline Catz) and son Peter (Rudi Goodman) and joined later by Dr. Pfeffer (Noah Taylor). Now the challenge begins on how to keep the family safe, fed and out of the reach of the Nazi’s. Once Miep tells Hans, who is a social worker who sees how wrong people are being treated, decides he also wants to be a part of the Dutch resistance.

As the Frank’s are hiding, Miep learns how to help run Mr. Frank’s pectin business and along with that are a few secrets that make things a little difficult. Jan starts his part by helping people with children get them to a safe place. Relationships are obviously strained as Miep learns who she can trust, who she cannot, how far people are willing to go to betray one-time friends and what will happen to them all?

This is a story of friendship, survival, loyalty and hope for the future!

Powley as Miep is exceptional in this role. She gives Miep a powerful voice, even if it does get her in trouble occasionally, and an equally powerful sense of right and wrong. Once she begins working for the Franks, Miep blossoms even more if that would be possible. She takes the Franks and others under her protection and takes on the role of protector, provider and keeper of secrets that could hurt them all. I just loved every time Powley was on screen as she truly is a force to be reckoned with. Taking on this iconic role, she made it look easy and brought out so many emotions from the first episode to the last.

Schreiber as Otto Frank is a big task for any actor yet Schrieber handle it with such grace and a sense of calm when everything around this character was in chaos. From accepting Miep and her ways to saving his family and a few others, it is clear that Frank was constantly thinking and staying as informed as he could. The relationship on screen with Powley is just breathtaking.

Cole as Jan has a rough beginning with Miep but when he sees how strong she is and the possibilities of doing right by others, he jumps right in. Cole gives his characters strength as a human being but also as a husband (and he needs it!). I thoroughly enjoyed his performance and teared up more than a few times as Cole’s portrayal of Jan is compassionate beyond measure.

There are so many strong performances in this limited series that I could write about them all day. Casar, Boulette and Brooke as the Frank women are trying to do their best but with all mothers and daughters – there are issues as it become a tense situation in the loft. Tomlinson as Tess does what she can and helps when she is able, including a little secret milk run. Burns as Office Manager Kugler also puts his life on the line to help the Franks and the intensity comes every time there is a knock at the door.

Other cast include Liza Sadovy as Mrs. Stoppelman, Ian McElhinney as Johannes Kleinman, Laurie Kynaston as Casmir, Sebastian Armesto as Max Stoppleman, Bill Milner as Tonny Ahlers, Sean Hart as Willem, Preston Nyman as Kuno Van Der Horst, Hanna van Vliet as Frieda, Tom Stourton as Daniel Van Dijk, Daniel Donskoy as Karl Silberbauer, Dylan Edwards as Isaac Schwartz, Sarah T. Cohen as Maya Schwartz, Sinead Phelps as Anka, and Brian Caspe as Laurens.

National Geographic is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by National Geographic Partners, a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company and the National Geographic Society. They support a diverse, international community of changemakers — National Geographic Explorers — who use the power of science, exploration, education, and storytelling to illuminate and protect the wonder of our world. For more information, please visit www.nationalgeographic.com.

ABC Signature is an American television production studio that is a subsidiary of Disney Television Studios, a division of Disney Entertainment, which is a division of The Walt Disney Company.

The episodes include Pilot, Welcome to Switzerland, Motherland, The Butterfly, Scheilfeld, Boiling Point, What Can Be Saved and Legacy

The cast is absolutely stellar as each of the directors Susanna Fogel, Leslie Hope and Tony Phelan seamlessly bring the story of Miep Gies and what her contribution was to the Frank family and the people of the Netherlands. The intensity is palpable and the heartbreak felt to the soul as Meip and Jan make it perfectly clear that a few can make a large difference.

From the loft, to the office to the streets, there is such a constant fear and yet a hope that the viewer will feel in each episode. Living in a time where being Jewish came with consequences, there was once a time no one could imagine what the war would cost them. It was also a time where good people put their own lives in jeopardy by doing the right thing for the Jewish community and humanity itself.

This series should be a must-see for educators because then it becomes a teaching tool. The Diary of Anne Frank became one of the most memorable books I ever read in school and I have re-read it so many times the cover is tattered. A SMALL LIGHT goes even further in explaining how things happened and what was happening on the other side of the bookcase door.  

A SMALL LIGHT is streaming on the National Geographic channel and available next day on Hulu and Disney+.

In the end – sometimes you have to risk everything!

 

 

Frankenstein’s Story is Told Through MARY SHELLEY

Jeri Jacquin

Coming to theatres from director Haifaa Al Mansour and IFC Films is the story of Frankenstein told from his lovely creator MARY SHELLEY.

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Elle Fanning) is a young girl who misses the mother she never knew and deals with step-mother Mary Jane (Joanne Froggatt) she wishes she didn’t. Her father William (Stephen Dillane) is a renown philosopher who sees something wild in his daughter. Consistently putting her thoughts to paper, she is looking for a life that is not the norm.

Seeing all this, Mary’s father sends her to visit Isabel Baxter (Maisie Williams), family who understands her in a surprising way. When the Baxter’s hold a gathering, Mary sees Percy Shelley (Douglas Booth) and is moved to hear he is a poet. They begin spending time together discussing things she has not been able to with anyone else.

But their time is short lived when Mary is recalled home to sister Claire (Bel Powley) who misses her. The tension that was there before has returned and the only light is a gentleman caller who wishes to be mentored by Mr. Godwin. Mary is stunned when it is Percy who comes through the door.

Wanting to be together, Mary’s father is outraged and Claire only begs to go when she does. Packing up to start a new life, the two meet with Percy moving into a place of their own. Mary and Percy’s happiness is hanging by a thread as she tries to recover from tragedy as well as the cruel gossip.

Out for a night, they all meet Lord Byron (Tom Sturridge) who invites them to come to his country estate for a visit. Claire is more than thrilled as she tells Mary that she’s not the only one that can land a poet. There is constant drinking and discussion but Mary can not find her words. That is when Byron throws a challenge for them each to write a ghost story.

The only horror is when Claire is devastated by Byron and Mary doesn’t want to live the craziness of a poet’s life. Returning to London, she puts pen to paper and creates Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus yet no one will publish her works. Even friend John Polidori (Ben Hardy) writes his ‘ghost story’ and it was stolen from him.

Mary wonders if anything is going to change when the two people she needs to stand by her most do just that. She made her own rules and wrote her own way to being Mary Shelley.

Fanning as Mary is delicate, determined, soft-spoken, fierce attitude and lyrical in her writings. It is easy to forget that this was life in 18^th century London and Mary’s role as a woman was carved in unmovable stone. Fanning’s performance gives us all and more with her alabaster and frail appearance. Underneath that is a fire this actress gives to a woman who knows that she doesn’t fit in to the mold. Her thought process and creativity are bursting and only the distraction of Shelley slows her down. Taking her life experiences to further her quest is not only staggering but breath taking at the same time.

Booth as Percy is everything a rogue poet would look like to me. He is dark in his writings and seductive when he focuses on something – singularly Mary. Believing he can have the bohemian life with her, it is his narcissism and entitlement that gets in the way of them both. Booth gives that performance from beginning to end with a hope of redemption for the man he is portraying.

Dillane as Godwin is a father who sees his daughter has not been happy most of her life. Dreaming of a mother she never knew, he can only encourage her to find the words to make her life have meaning. Froggatt as Mary Jane does a fantastic job in getting me not to like her which is so weird because she was one of my favorite Downton Abbey characters.

Powley as Claire is a young woman who wants the same thing as Mary and the only way to get it is to live in her shadow. Sturridge as Lord Byron plays a man who has no conscious at all and has no qualms in using anyone for anything he needs. What a strange place 18^th century London was!

Williams has a small role as Isabel, the cousin who seems to understand the wild side of Mary and encourages it. She is swift and charming as only Williams can be.

Other cast include: Ben Hardy as John Polidori, Hugh O’Conor as Samuel Coleridge, Ciara Charteris as Harriet Shelley, Sarah Lamesch as Eliza and Jack Hickey as Thomas Hogg.

MARY SHELLEY is a deep and intense period drama about a woman who was clearly born in the wrong century. Her grasp of the written word came at an early age with her desire to get out everything hiding within her. Trying to live the best life by her terms, it seemed her terms were even to difficult for those around her to grasp.

Falling in love with Shelley could be considered the step off of a difficult life but who are we to judge that. How many of us have chosen to be with a person we know is wrong for us or will challenge our sanity – yet we still do it? That is exactly what happened to Mary to the day Percy died.

I have read books about Mary Shelley’s life and to say it was a difficult one is an understatement. Deaths of family, children and constantly being questioned about the authorship of Frankenstein, I have long admired her tenacity to put all of it at bay and continue with her work while raising her son.

The film gives only a powerful glimpse of her life as a young woman but it is so well and beautifully done. The cinematography and costuming lend itself to bringing me into the story quickly and keeping me until the very end.

Mary Shelley wanted a life different than the women of her time and the difficulty in doing so is putting yourself in harms way with society. Like today, chatterboxes and gossipers can destroy a person with word and Mary couldn’t escape that. The truth is that it would take many Mary’s to get where we are today and that is enough reason to want to know more about this rare woman.

In the end – her greatest love inspired her darkest creation!