The story of the Emergency Rescue Committee would make for a compelling TV drama. Journalist and activist Varian Fry led a group of resistance operatives, American expats, and sympathetic diplomats in Marseille in 1940 to help blacklisted individuals, including Jewish and anti-Nazi writers, artists, and philosophers, escape persecution in Europe and start new lives. Against the backdrop of the Riviera, this group of people with a shared mission comes together to accomplish something truly noble, without being consumed by the darkness of the Holocaust.Transatlantic Season 1 Download.
Transatlantic, co-created by Anna Winger (known for Deutschland 83 and Unorthodox), captures the essence of this story, even if it doesn’t quite match the intensity of her previous works. It blends various elements into a sunny adventure that is mindful of the tragedy that propels it, yet remains light enough in tone to be aired on a Sunday evening on ITV.
The show’s lead character is Mary Jayne Gold (played by Gillian Jacobs), an expat from Chicago who uses her wealth to aid refugees camped on the beaches of Marseille, rather than return to a life of ennui as a posh housewife. While Varian Fry (Cory Michael Smith) is not the focus of the show, his character is portrayed as being in love with his ERC colleague, Thomas (Amit Rahav), a depiction that aligns with the book the series is based on, The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer. While some critics initially considered the book’s portrayal of Fry’s sexuality as speculative, his son later confirmed its accuracy in a letter to the New York Times.