We Were the Lucky Ones | |
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Based on | We Were The Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter |
Developed by | Erica Lipez |
Showrunner | Erica Lipez |
Starring | |
Theme music composer | Rachel Portman Jon Ehrlich |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of episodes | 8 |
Production | |
Executive producers |
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Running time | 53–75 minutes |
Production companies |
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Original release | |
Network | Hulu |
Release | March 28 – May 2, 2024 |
We Were The Lucky Ones is an American historical drama miniseries developed by Erica Lipez for Hulu that premiered on March 28, 2024 and ended on May 2, 2024. [1] It is an adaptation of the 2017 book of the same name by Georgia Hunter, inspired by the story of her own family's struggle to survive World War II and the Holocaust. [2]
The drama centers on the Kurc family, Polish Jews, which includes five siblings portrayed by Joey King, Logan Lerman, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Amit Rahav and Hadas Yaron and their parents, played by Lior Ashkenazi and Robin Weigert.
In 1938, the Kurc family gather for Passover at the family home in the Polish city of Radom. Their professional successes and prosperity shield them somewhat from the virulent anti-semitism in the country. After the war begins, and as Hitler's persecution of European Jewry intensifies, the family is split apart, scattered from Poland to the Soviet Union, Italy and Brazil. Once the war ends, the survivors attempt to find each other and reunite. [3] [1]
No. | Title [4] | Directed by | Teleplay by [5] | Original release date [6] | |
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1 | "Radom" | Thomas Kail | Erica Lipez | March 28, 2024 | |
It is 1938, and the Kurc family celebrates Passover together, including brother Addy, who returns from Paris for the holiday. The siblings tease Genek about his new girlfriend Herta, as well as Jakob and Bella, who have yet to marry after seven years as a couple. They also discuss growing anti-semitism in Radom. The story flashes forward to 1939. Genek has married Herta. Mila and Selim have a baby daughter names Felicia. Halina and Adam are in love, but wary of committing to marriage. Addy is unable to travel from Paris to Radom for Passover because the train would pass through German territory. On September 1, 1939, Germany invades western Poland, and World War II begins. Selim, Adam, Genek and Jakob are called up for army duty in the eastern city of Lvov. The German army reaches Radom, and the Kurcs are among those conscripted to work at farms and factories amid increasing German brutality against the local population. Herta leaves to join Genek in Soviet-occupied Lvov. Halina berates Mila and their parents for not leaving Poland while they could. The family gets news that Selim has been missing since Lvov fell to the Soviets, but the city is now relatively calm. Halina and Bella decide to make the dangerous journey to Lvov to join Halina's brothers and Bella's sister Ana, and find work. | |||||
2 | "Lvov" | Amit Gupta | Erica Lipez | March 28, 2024 | |
Halina and Bella survive their journey, including being captured and forced to work in a Soviet army camp, and reach Lvov. They reunite with Jakob, Genek, Herta, Ana and Adam. Jakob and Bella marry. Halina asks Adam, who is part of the local Jewish resistance, to help her get involved doing something useful. She tells Adam she is no longer in love with him. | |||||
3 | "Siberia" | Amit Gupta | Adam Milch | March 28, 2024 | |
A pregnant Herta goes with Genek as he is arrested by Soviet military. They are loaded onto a train and spend weeks in deplorable conditions. Meanwhile, Addy has secured passage on the Alsina, one of the last refugee ships leaving France and headed to Brazil. Working to help coordinate entertainment for the guests, Addy meets a wealthy woman named Eliska Lowbeer and her mother. Addy and Eliska grow close as they spend time together and eventually realize their ship is not headed to Brazil. | |||||
4 | "Casablanca" | Neasa Hardiman | Anya Meksin | April 4, 2024 | |
In June 1941, Halina is being used at the lab as an involuntary blood donor. The Kurcs in Radom have been conscripted into various labor situations. Mila’s boss is arrested, so she can no longer sneak baby Felicia into the factory where she works. Unable to care for Felicia during the day, the Kurcs smuggle Felicia out of the ghetto with the help of Isaac. Adam is needed by the resistance in Warsaw and even though Halina is conflicted, she tells him to go. In Senegal, Addy has been forced to work in a labor camp. He escapes the camp and finds Eliska and her mother to convince them to leave. Addy proposes to Eliska and she says yes. The family that was to care for Felicia return her to the Kurcs because she “looks too Jewish.” Violence begins to escalate in Lvov so Halina, Jakob and Bella go into hiding. Mila secures transport to Palestine but it turns out to be a ruse. She and the other "passengers" are instead taken to a field outside the city, where soldiers force them to dig their own graves at gunpoint. Mila realizes they are all going to be shot and killed. To save her daughter, Mila tells Felicia to run to a pretty, blond-haired, blue eyed woman who is talking to an officer. Felicia runs, calling out "mama," and the woman embraces her. They both board a wagon together. As the soldiers start shooting, Mila runs toward the wagon. | |||||
5 | "Ilha Das Flores" | Neasa Hardiman | Jonathan Caren | April 11, 2024 | |
Mila trades her wedding ring for passage on the wagon. She is reunited with Felicia and they return home. Halina, Jakob and Bella come out of hiding and return to their apartment to find it destroyed, and the building empty. Adam, Bella’s sister Ana, and Ana’s husband, Daniel, are missing. Bella searches for her sister but Ana and Daniel are most likely dead. Halina, Jakob and Bella make arrangements to return to Radom but when Halina hears that Adam may be alive and under arrest, she decides to stay in Lvov. Eliska and Addy arrive in Brazil but are detained because their visas have expired. Halina forges new identification paperwork and poses as a non-Jew to get Adam released. Genek, Herta, and other prisoners of war are released by the Soviets and transported south to fight for Poland, but the army does not want Jews in the infantry. Genek fights with Herta about the infantry job. Eliska tells Addy they are the last European Jewish refugees being allowed into Brazil. Addy is upset because he will not be able to send for his family, but Eliska angrily tells him to leave the past behind. The Kurcs celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Sol reveals he has received a letter from Halina, who says she and Adam are together, married and living in Warsaw. Bella tells Jakob she is pursuing a factory job away from the ghetto, because too much there reminds her of her dead sister. Genek asks a fellow conscript for lessons on Catholicism so he can join the infantry. Finally freed from detention in Brazil, Eliska and Addy go their separate ways. | |||||
6 | "Warsaw" | Amit Gupta | Eboni Booth | April 18, 2024 | |
September 1941 - At Halina’s suggestion, Mila carries out a plan to escape the ghetto with Felicia and move to Warsaw. A year later, in October 1942, Bella and Jakob are living separately; she is in factory housing outside the ghetto while he is still in the ghetto working as a photographer for a German officer. Mila and Halina, passing as non-Jews, are working in Warsaw as a nanny and a house servant, respectively, for rich families. Bella learns her parents are going to be sent to a concentration camp. Halina pays off a German officer in exchange for her parents’ freedom and makes arrangements for them to live with in hiding with sympathizers. Bella tries to convince her parents to leave with her but they tell her that she has a better chance of survival without them. Jakob and other Jews are forced out of their homes in the middle of the night as the Nazis begin to empty the ghetto. The next day, Jakob is able to talk his way into seeing Bella and they have an emotional reunion. Mila goes to see Felicia, who is being cared for at a convent under a false identity. As German soldiers begin transporting the Jewish workers at Bella's factory to concentration camps, she and Jakob, along with a few other workers, cut through a wire fence and escape into nearby woods. | |||||
7 | "Monte Cassino" | Neasa Hardiman | Tea Ho & Adam Milch | April 25, 2024 | |
It’s April 1943. Addy, in Rio, writes to his family members and despairs at getting no responses. A month later, it is shown that Jakob and Bella are living and working in Warsaw by passing as non-Jewish Poles. | |||||
8 | "Rio" | Thomas Kail | Erica Lipez | May 2, 2024 | |
October 1944 - Halina is imprisoned in the Montelupich Prison in Krakow, Poland. For three months, she is tortured but she never admits her true name or to being a Jew. Even as executions of prisoners increase, Halina's former employer comes to her rescue by vouching for her, and she is released. Herta is pregnant. Halina and Adam are reunited and visit her parents, who are alive and still in hiding. |
The series is produced by 20th Television and is adapted by Erica Lipez from the 2017 Georgia Hunter book We Were The Lucky Ones, a New York Times Best Seller [7] inspired by the story of her own family. [8] Lipez also serves as showrunner and executive producer. Thomas Kail is director and executive producer, along with Adam Milch and Jennifer Todd who executive produces for Old 320 Sycamore and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon who executive produces for Pearl Street Films. [9] The score is composed by Rachel Portman and Jon Ehrlich. [10]
Joey King, Logan Lerman, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Amit Rahav and Hadas Yaron were cast as siblings who grow up in Radom, Poland with Lerman's role of Addy Kurc based on Hunter's real-life grandfather. [11] Both King and Lerman have discussed having family members themselves who escaped The Holocaust. [12] [13]
Most of the characters are Polish Jews and these roles are mostly played by Jewish actors from the United States, Israel and England. [14] This is the second time that Yaron and Aloni have appeared as a couple, following their 2015–2021 work in the Israeli drama series Shtisel . [15] The role of Madame Lowbeer is portrayed by a non-Jewish actress, Marin Hinkle, who has a real-life Jewish husband and raised their son as a Jew. [16]
Filming took place from December 2022 and finished in spring 2023. Primarily filming took place in Bucharest, Romania with filming locations also including Málaga and Cádiz in Spain. [17]
The series premiered on Hulu in the United States on March 28, 2024. [18]
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 95% approval rating with an average rating of 8/10, based on 22 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Equal parts harrowing and life-affirming, We Were the Lucky Ones is a sensitively told tale of perseverance given tear-inducing heart by its wonderful ensemble." [19] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the limited series a "generally favorable" score of 80 out of 100, based on 13 critics. [20] RogerEbert.com concluded that "We Were the Lucky Ones is a defiant and harrowing, soul shattering story—one that gives the full range of the horrors that occur when you’ve been displaced, unmoored, and dehumanized." [21] Aramide Tinibu of Variety also praised the series: "Spending extended time with each member of the Kurcs allows the viewer to get into their psyche while absorbing differing perspectives and opinions instead of a monolithic overview of Holocaust survivors." [22]
The Jewish parenting website Kveller praised the series as "a visceral, touching, sweeping and profoundly human show, one of the best you’ll see all year, and the Jewish representation in it is deeply thoughtful, perhaps more than any show I’ve ever seen." [14] The Boston Globe concluded: "So yes, the miniseries is challenging, and steeped in heartbreak, and unrelenting. But it joins a growing inventory of important, eye-opening, memorable, and timely TV takes on the Holocaust and World War II. Ultimately it is as rewarding as it is harrowing." [23]
Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Nominee(s) | Result | Ref. |
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Astra TV Awards | December 8, 2024 | Best Limited Series | We Were the Lucky Ones | Pending | [24] |
Best Actress in a Limited Series or TV Movie | Joey King | Pending | |||
Critics' Choice Awards | January 12, 2025 | Best Limited Series | We Were the Lucky Ones | Pending | [25] |
Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie Made for Television | Logan Lerman | Pending |
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