Stream It Or Skip It: ‘We Were The Lucky Ones’ On Hulu, About A Jewish Family Trying To Reunite After World War II

It seems that World War II dramas are all the rage over the past few years, especially ones that explore the experiences in Europe during the war’s early years. They explore the fear of what’s to come as the Germans march their way across the continent, as well as the idea that Jews across the territory the Germans conquered had no idea what horrors were in store for them. A new drama on Hulu incorporates many of these themes, but it also explores how some families managed to get reunited after the war was over.

WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “Red Cross Office, Lodz, Poland. 1945.” A woman stands in a crowd of people waiting to hear from loved ones. Someone calls her to the front, and hands her a note telling her that they’ve located one or more of her family members.

The Gist: Seven years earlier, in Radom, Poland, that same woman, Halina Kurc (Joey King) is delivering a package to the lab where she works for her brother-in-law Selim (Michael Aloni) as a lab assistant. Her pregnant sister Mila (Hadas Yaron) complains that she doesn’t treat her job seriously enough. But Halina doesn’t want to hear it; she’s off to the train station to pick up their brother Addy (Logan Lerman), who has come in from Paris for Passover.

Halina is starting to see the antisemitism that has started to permeate Europe, giving an example of a regular customer of her family’s dress shop that no longer comes because she’s “a snob who hates Jews.” Their parents Sol (Lior Ashkenazi) and Nechuma (Robin Weigert) are happy to see Addy, whose music career in Paris has started to take off. More Kurc offspring — Mila and Selim, Genec (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) ,and Jakub (Amit Rahav) and his girlfriend Bella (Eva Feiler) — plus Adam (Sam Woolf), who is renting a room at the apartment and has caught Halina’s eye, come over for the seder.

A year later in Paris, Addy is down over being told by his mother not to come to Radom for Passover; it’s too dangerous with the Germans ready to invade and antisemitism running rampant. He’s determined to go, but he’s told at the Polish consulate that, as a Jew, “travel for you is a death sentence.” Back in Radom, Genec finds out that he’s being demoted at work; he tells his new wife Herta (Moran Rosenblatt) that he’s decided to quit. Mila is overwhelmed by motherhood and doesn’t feel connected to her infant daughter. And Halina and Sam are dating.

By September, the Germans start their push into Poland; all of the men in the Kurc family join the military to fight off the advancement. After German soldiers march through town, the Kurcs find that their business, along with other Jewish businesses, are being taken over by the Germans. Halina, along with the rest of the family, are sent to work camps; Halina finds herself pulling beets on a farm, and witnessing a woman being beaten by soldiers after she hides one to bring home. She begs her parents to leave, but they refuse, saying they will not leave their hometown.

However, since half of Poland is under Russian control, some of the clan starts to make plans to escape to Lvov, which is in the region controlled by the Soviets and where most of the men are stationed — they all seem to be accounted for, except for Selim. Herta has already decided to leave, and soon Bella and Halina start making plans to go, as well.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Based on a novel by Georgia Hunter, We Were The Lucky Ones reminds us of the myriad series we’ve seen lately that take place at the beginning of World War II: World On Fire, The New Look, All The Light We Cannot See, and others.

Our Take: Erica Lipez (The Morning Show) adapted We Were The Lucky Ones for TV, and the first episode is directed by Thomas Kail (Hamilton). It certainly is trying to tell a harrowing story with what we imagine is something of a positive ending, where most of the Kurc family is reunited after the war. There are fantastic performances all over the first episode, highlighted by Joey King as the loyal but independent Halina.

But we spent a lot of the first episode just trying to sort out just who is related to who and who is married to who, which took us right out of the impending dread that the family experienced as the looming danger of German occupation became closer to a reality. The Kurcs are a big family, and the way we’re introduced to them is jumbled at best. We especially got confused when we see Genec with Herta; for some reason, we thought it was Mila and Selim. It took a second viewing to just sort out which one of the look-alike male Kurc offspring was actually in a particular scene.

Once the family is spread out, trying to survive the way in whatever way they can in the face of German persecution of Jews, that confusion might dissipate. But then another problem arises: How does everyone get enough story and screen time to develop their characters and not just become flat stereotypes?

By the end of the first episode, we have an idea about the personalities of some the Kurcs and their associated married relatives, but the rest get so little screen time we don’t even get a chance to root for them to escape the Germans. For instance, when Herta tells Mila that she’s going to go to Lvov, we had only seen her in the one scene with Genec; it barely registered with us just who she actually was. Will it register with us again when we encounter her in later episodes? We’re not sure.

We Were The Lucky Ones is one of those kinds of shows that have the “quality” label all over it, from the settings to the costumes to the performances and the historic significance of the story. But it may just be too sprawling a narrative to keep the story cohesive enough in an eight-episode limited series.

Sex and Skin: Nothing more than scenes like Herta and Genec rolling around in bed with their clothes on.

Parting Shot: Lying in a bed next to Belle, Halina reluctantly agrees to go to Lvov with her.

Sleeper Star: In a scene where Mila hands her baby daughter to her mother and talks about how overwhelmed she is, the baby seemingly touches her mother’s arm on cue. So either that was CGI, or a wonderful coincidence that Kail happened to capture. Either way, kudos to the baby for such great acting.

Most Pilot-y Line: Genec tells a coworker that the Germans will be stopped at the border. “I’m certain of it,” he says. Nice foreshadowing, huh?

Our Call: STREAM IT. While the first episode of We Were The Lucky Ones is a bit confusing and the show has too many characters to keep track of, King’s and Lerman’s performances anchor the series and make it worth watching, even if the rest of the characters won’t get as well-explored.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.