The Luminaries (promo)

The idea of going to film something there [New Zealand] for several months was attractive. And then, it was a story that’s so connected to New Zealand’s history. I felt a personal connection to it, as well, because it’s also British history. We’re drawing on colonial history, which is running underneath this thing. It’s ultimately a really unique and really cerebral love story that’s really brilliantly adapted by Eleanor [Catton] from her own novel. Usually, you’d imagine an author adapting their own work would stick quite closely to the novel, but she drifted away from it so amazingly and adapted it in a really clever way.

– Actor Himesh Patel on what attracted him to The Luminaries, Collider website, 4 March 2021

...something utterly new. The pages fly, the great weight of the book shifting quickly from right hand to left, a world opening and closing in front of us, the human soul revealed in all its conflicted desperation. I mean glory. And as for the length, surely a book this good could never be too long.

– New York Times reviewer Bill Roorbatch on Eleanor Catton's novel, The Luminaries, 16 October 2013

Characters-with-a-capital-C everywhere, more plot than you know what to do with, hares set running at every turn, lavish period detail and lighting replicating the novel’s gorgeous staginess, and a convoluted murder-mystery. All set against the endlessly febrile atmosphere of the country’s 19th-century gold rush. Oh, also — opium, obstacle-strewn paths to true love, business double-dealing, racism, fortune-telling, brothels, questions of fate and astrolabes. It is glorious escapism, perfect for our times.

– Guardian writer Lucy Mangan in a four star review, 21 June 2020

Eighty-seven per cent New Zealand cast, which provided 40 jobs for New Zealand actors. Ninety-six per cent New Zealand crew, which provided 603 jobs for New Zealanders.

– The Luminaries cast and crew statistics, NZ Film Commission website

...she’s a survivor. She’s a natural entrepreneur ... She is a feminist and she’s very sure of herself, very smart. The men look up to her because she’s created this establishment, The House Of Many Wishes, where they come and escape the grit and grime of digging for gold. It’s like an oasis, and she’s this mysterious, inaccessible creature that the men admire from afar.

– French actor Eva Green on her character Lydia Wells, BBC website

...even with my moments of befuddlement and discombobulation, I enjoyed the show. It's rare to see new world New Zealand presented in such a lush, lavish and obviously expensive way. The acting across the board is superb and even though it's on TV, it's hugely cinematic.

– NZ Herald reviewer Karl Puschmann on Episode One, 22 May 2020

Gold represents hopes, dreams, aspirations but also greed, doom and death.

– The Luminaries actor Marton Csokas, on the BBC website

For me, the inner life of Francis Carver has been very much about wanting to honour that love that he has for her [Lydia Wells], whilst also, to a large extent, betraying his own instincts.

– Actor Marton Csokas on his character Francis Carver, BBC website

The thing about Anna that I fell in love with was that at the beginning, you meet her and she's an enigma ... She comes up against all these characters in the story, and they're trying to make her something. Older men are trying to take something from her, they're projecting their fantasies on her: They want to make her the prostitute, they want to make her the daughter, they want to make her the wife, whatever it is. You see her succumb to that pressure, but then slowly rise out of it and choose herself and choose hope and choose love, and I thought that was a really powerful arc.

– Co-star Eve Hewson on Anna Wetherell, Entertainment Weekly website, 12 February 2021

The supernatural undercurrent in Catton’s story surfaces inconsistently; it either has too little of an impact on the story, or far, far too much ... Catton was the youngest author to ever win a Booker Prize, and she did it with the longest novel ever. It’s sold more than half a million copies. All of this points to a triumph. But in this scattershot adaptation, all you can see is an eclipse of something that’s probably quite beautiful when it is full.

– IndieWire reviewer Ann Donahue, 14 February 2021