‘The Luminaries’ is a Horror Story Where Illiteracy is the Monster

Everything about Starz’s new series The Luminaries seemed tailor-made to seduce me. It’s a lush period drama set against the 19th century New Zealand gold rush. Eva Green stars as a sneaky brothel-owner/fortune teller. There are even star-crossed lovers and a supernatural mystery. It should have been my next TV obsession. However after an intriguing start, The Luminaries soon establishes itself as a disturbing horror story. The monster of this tale? Illiteracy.

The Luminaries is based on the best-selling novel by Eleanor Catton and tells the story of Anna (Eve Hewson) and Emery (Himesh Patel), two optimists who have given up everything to travel to 1860s New Zealand in pursuit of fortune. The two meet on the day their ship literally arrives in this strange new world and discover they have the same birthday. When something immediately sparks in the two, Emery invites Anna to meet him at his hotel. The only problem with this picture perfect period meet cute? Emery writes the hotel’s name on a piece of paper for Anna, who neglects to tell him she can’t read.

Why doesn’t Anna admit her illiteracy? Shame? Embarrassment? It would derail the drama of the story? I’m not sure. I just know from there, Anna’s bad luck gets worse. As soon as Anna gets through customs, a pickpocket steals away with her one bag. She’s able to chase him down, but falls into the clutches of Eva Green’s Lydia Wells. Although Lydia stops the kid and retrieves the bag, she also snatches Anna’s money purse away. Then, when Anna reveals that she can’t read, Lydia offers to help her find Emery, only to lie to her about the hotel’s name and address. The situation puts Anna totally at Lydia’s mercy.

At every moment in The Luminaries‘s premiere, I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching a slow-moving slasher film. Instead of screaming at the heroine not to open a door or go up the stairs, I was instead frantic over the fact that Anna didn’t know how to read. Worse, she revealed her illiteracy to the worst people imaginable. When she finally figures out Lydia’s deceit — upon discovering her own purse in Lydia’s coat pocket — Anna never confronts the fortuneteller. In fact, it’s like she willingly falls into the dark netherworld of Lydia’s mansion.

Because The Luminaries toggles between Anna’s arrival in New Zealand and the moment she’s caught up in a murder a year later, we know these choices bring her low. She becomes a drug-addicted prostitute, alone in a hostile land, separated from anyone who would advocate for her. The Luminaries thinks the question of how she wound up in the middle of a metaphysical murder mystery should be enough to hook us. Bizarrely, all I could think was, “My god, I wish Anna knew how to read!” If Anna could read the written word, read people, read the room, or read the stars, then The Luminaries wouldn’t be such a horror story.

Ultimately, The Luminaries didn’t whisk me off into the drama of 19th Century New Zealand so much as it made me grateful I knew how to read. The show’s whole plot hinges on this one under-appreciated skill. While we take literacy for granted, it truly is something of a superpower. In Anna’s case, it could have changed her whole life.

The Luminaries didn’t make me curious about Anna and Emery’s astral twin connection or concerned about the magical murder victim in the flash-forward scenes. Starz’s The Luminaries made me thankful I knew how to read. And, I suppose, it also made me curious to read Eleanor Catton’s book to find out what got lost in translation onscreen.

Where to stream The Luminaries