Gratitude is a powerful thing. Studies have shown how shifting your perspective—documenting and savoring the things that you can be grateful for, even in the most difficult of circumstances— can be the key to happiness. But the new Hulu series We Were The Lucky Ones really puts that notion to the test. Its very title is a provocation in that respect: To call the survivors of such horrific events “lucky,” by any definition or stretch of the imagination, is to desperately search for a glimmer of light in a horrifying cavern of pitch black.
Based on a novel by Georgia Hunter, and on the tragic real-life events that inspired the book, the eight-episode series (premiering Mar. 28) begins with a sobering statistic: “By the end of the Holocaust, 90 percent of Poland’s Jews had been killed.” In fact, Poland suffered the worst death per capita of any country during the war, and around 17 percent of its entire population—a number just shy of 6 million total—was lost. Perhaps aware that death on that scale is beyond human comprehension, We Were the Lucky Ones encapsulates the tragedy through the story of one Jewish family separated by the war, and “lucky” only in how it was brought back together at the end of it.
Before the war, the Kurc family lives in relative harmony and comfort in the town of Radom. Success has shielded them some from the swelling bigotry of the moment: “Minor celebrity softens even the worst antisemite,” young Halina (Joey King) teases her successful musician brother, Addy (Logan Lerman). Such lightness about their place in the world will not last. The series covers the subsequent seven years, as the Kurcs are scattered to run from dehumanization and genocide. Some are forced into hiding or condemned to dreaded camps. Others make it across Europe with their eyes set on starting a new life in America, forced to face the timely obstacle of proving they’re the “right sort” of immigrant. One harrowing thread sees a family member forced to dig their own grave, while a parallel sees another who has coopted a new identity endure protracted torture as the Nazis attempt to get them to confess their Judaism.
It’s not a show for the faint-hearted or easily triggered. But despite the spiral of cruelty it traces, We Were the Lucky Ones remains elegantly crafted throughout, which is to be expected from a creative team made of veterans of Fosse/Verdon, The Morning Show, and the tragically canceled Julia. In contrast to the dehumanization that consumed them and so many others, the show recognizes the preciousness of the lives it follows. Each member of the Kurc family is honored; this spotlight extends from how exquisitely they’re costumed, framed, and lit to the attention paid to every agonizing decision they make to survive.
While the entire ensemble dignifies the legacy of these real-life victims, bringing a lived-in warmth to their characters’ interpersonal bonds, particular praise should be reserved for Joey King, who’s stunning in the role of Halina. King has a certain quality that makes you forget that she’s ever looked at an iPhone. Somehow every molecule of her body, including her perfectly set period curls, reads as authentically 1940s. In We Were the Lucky Ones, the Kissing Booth star retains the feistiness for which she’s known, while exhibiting a heretofore unrevealed nuance.
Family, tragedy, trauma, resilience: These are themes of timeless, universal appeal. But the show also fascinatingly buttresses against the politics of the time in which it’s being released. Characters travel to “Palestine” and discuss immigration policies that echo Donald Trump’s wall and the U.K.’s Rwanda plan. There are parallels to be found with families now being traumatized and annihilated in Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine. Ultimately, We Were The Lucky Ones is a story of people screaming at us from the annals of history, begging us to not make the same mistakes and knowing that each life lost is the end of a tragic tale, even when the cumulative number is inconceivably vast. It’s a stunning culmination of the legacy of the Kurc family that eight decades later, we get to bask in their bravery, be warmed by their familial bonds, and heed their warnings. For all that, a viewer can feel lucky, while still questioning how the people immortalized by this powerful drama of survival ever could.
