Luminous

Luminous did something for me that no other science documentary has ever done; it brought tears to my eyes.

Rarely do we see the drama of scientific research portrayed realistically on the screen. Most science documentaries focus on the science itself, telling a tidied up story that suppresses and caricatures the human dimension, told with titillating exaggeration and fantasy. These tidied up stories bypass the real human story behind scientific discovery. They condense years or decades of hard work and incessant intellectual search, into flashes of supernatural insight. And they have a regrettable tendency to neatly sort out the scientists into winners and losers, with the certainty of hindsight, ascribing "genius" to the former and casting insinuations on the latter of pseudoscience and moral failing. All of this, entertaining as it may be to those who have never worked in science, fails to portray the route to discovery authentically.

This documentary delivers a glimpse into the life of a living scientist, in all its humanity, in all its complexity, with its exhilarating highs, and raw disappointments, that a full life brings.