Taking its title from a quote with which Miep Gies, the woman who helped hide Anne Frank and her family in Amsterdam during WWII, often ended her speeches later in life, “A Small Light” is the latest engaging, richly detailed biographical drama from National Geographic.
Co-creators Joan Rater and Tony Phelan (“Grey’s Anatomy”) find a deeply humanist angle to this well-known piece of history by telling the story of Frank and her family through those who aided them. While the tragic ending for most of the family is no surprise, this approach allows them the grace of humor and anger and happiness and sadness in equal measure.
The series is mostly set from July 6, 1942, to August 4, 1944 – the period in which Otto Frank (a dignified Liev Schreiber, “Ray Donovan”), his wife Edith Frank (Amira Casar, “Call Me By Your Name”), their daughters Margot (Ashley Brooke) and Anne (Billie Boullet), along with four others hid from the Nazis in an annex above Frank’s offices. Flashbacks peppered throughout introduce biographical details about Austrian-born Miep (a tremendous Bel Powley, “The Diary of a Teenage Girl”), including how she became adopted by a Dutch family as a child, her courtship with her husband Jan (Joe Cole, “Peaky Blinders”), her hiring by Otto as his secretary, and the lead up to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
In these early scenes, we meet the flighty, messy, short-fused Miep as a young woman without much of a purpose. Even before Otto asks her to help aid his family, it is through her friendship with his family, and her relationship with Jan, that she begins to plot a course for her life. As keeping the family safe takes over her life, a new purpose takes hold.
Because the show is mostly told from the perspective of Miep and her husband Jan, the violence perpetrated on the Jewish population by the Nazis is often seen at a distance. The effect is not a dulling of their viciousness but rather allows the violence to speak for itself without wading into exploitative territory.
Powley’s large, expressive eyes reflect Miep’s growth. At first filled with the awe and wonder of youth, by the show’s later episodes there is an earned wisdom, shaded by a thin layer of weariness. As Jan, Miep’s partner in resistance, Cole is perfectly cast. The two first meet in a bar, Jan meekly reading a book on his own. The two craft an exquisite chemistry in these early scenes that carries nicely into the passionate dissidents they become.
While Miep channels her frustration towards the occupying Nazis through her secret work aiding the Franks, Jan uses his position as a social worker to help his countrymen as best he can, though he is often left feeling like he’s not doing enough. When the opportunity arises for him to join the resistance, a righteous fire is lit within him. The resistance sequences include some of the most heart-rending moments in the series, often involving the complex hurdles the group surmounted to rescue children and infants.
Here, the writers also slyly find ways to suggest parallels to current events, including the rise of anti-semitism and legislation attacking the queer community in the United States and abroad. “The Nazis declared me illegal,” Miep’s adopted brother Cas (Laurie Kynaston, “The Man Who Fell to Earth”) tells her, fearing that if an arrested ex-lover outs him that their parents will also be in danger. That many of Jan’s fellow resistance fighters are also from the LGBTQ community underscores just how long the fight for equality has persisted.
Along with the show’s portrayal of resistance in action, it also shows how the grip of fascism can tighten through inaction. It’s not long after Miep’s best friend, Tess (Eleanor Tomlinson, “Poldark”), shrugs off the murder of an ice cream shop owner who dared publicly resist the Nazis before she’s engaged to a collaborator who declares he has to do business with Nazis to keep his father’s company afloat. Despite all this, Miep and Jan even continue to socialize with the couple until they realize they’re at a party completely comprised of Dutch Nazis.
In contrast to the show’s grim portrait of how fascism can so easily creep into society is its depiction of the strength of those who hold tight to their humanity. In one beautiful scene, Miep arranges it so that Dr. Pfeffer (a touching Noah Taylor, “Preacher”) can overhear her conversation with his girlfriend Lottie, who has brought a basket for Hanukkah. Taylor lays his head on a vent in the floor above the kitchen, as below she describes how they had herring on their first date. A tear and smile overcome him. A reminder that people’s lives are made of these small moments that often seem insignificant until suddenly they do.
These quiet moments of profound humanism keep the show grounded and away from the realm of exploitation, even as the date of the family’s arrest becomes imminent. Again, this is presented through Miep’s experience of the events, her terror, her anguish, her strength. Sounds are heard off-screen when the hidden rooms are finally raided. Miep’s eyes are full of sorrow as she watches them removed, one by one.
The last frame of Anne, who throughout the series is played by Boullet with stunning warmth and ferocity, will break your heart. Not just because of the writer we know she was, but because of the impish, intelligent, restless, and fiercely opinionated, regular young girl we’ve had the pleasure of getting to see in fits and starts throughout the series. Though it would become her legacy, her diary is only mentioned a few times. It’s her own hidden world in this hidden world.
When Miep saved the diary, it was with the thought that she could return it to Anne when the war ended. It was a simple act of kindness, the only thing she had left to give. And yet, the ramifications of this action had a greater effect than she could ever have imagined. We know this to be true, but for Miep, just after the war, it feels like not enough.
Yet, what “A Small Light” seeks to show us is the importance of choosing every day to do something that we know is good. Miep may have felt at that moment that she failed, but she helped give Anne and her family safety and hope for an extra two years, and even without factoring in the later importance of Anne’s diary, that is a whole lot.
In real life, Miep did not think of herself as a hero. Just an ordinary person who did the right thing. In a world that feels increasingly like fewer and fewer people would do the same, stories like hers are of great importance. But it’s also refreshing that it can be told with all of her complexity and her flaws still intact. [A-]
“A Small Light” debuts on National Geographic and Disney+ today.