The story of Varian Fry, the Emergency Rescue Committee (later to become today's International Rescue Committee) and its efforts to spirit refugee artists and intellectuals out of Vichy France in the early years of World War II has become a historical, ahistorical, quasi-historical romantic melodrama, "Transatlantic." Written by Anna Winger ("Unorthodox") and Daniel Hendler, and premiering this week on Netflix, the seven-episode series was "inspired by," though not adapted from, the 2019 novel "The Flight Portfolio," in which author Julie Orringer imagined Fry's life as a closeted gay man. It's a storyline here, along with other tales of love in a time of fascism, whose heroes get up close and personal while handling collaborationist French policemen, obstructive American bureaucrats, unpredictable border guards and difficult creative types.
In a note to the press, the IRC, evidently both flattered to be noticed and concerned that a viewer might mistake "Transatlantic" for a straightforward recitation of the facts, pointed out, in boldface, that the account was "fictionalized." While true to the essence of the story, with sundry facts pinned to the dialogue, the series rewrites many particulars and creates or alters events and characters in the service of a conventional brand of screen excitement — though the actual facts of the case, widely available in print and online, are dramatic enough.
I first became aware of Fry and the ERC from Ken Burns' documentary series "The U.S. and the Holocaust," and, as someone interested in that intersection of political, cultural and art history, I was excited to see this. (It's not every TV series, or any other TV series, that has Max Ernst as a character.) You can't blame filmmakers for not making the work you imagine. Though "Transatlantic" is made with evident affection for its subject, and is not without entertainment value, it can also be clunky, corny and cliched, scattered and perfunctory and at times unintentionally laughable.
