Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Luz: The Light Of The Heart’ On Netflix, About A 9-Year-Old Who Runs From Her Indigenous Family In Order To Find The Truth About Her Roots

Netflix’s first Brazilian kids series, Luz: The Light Of The Heart, centers around a 9-year-old girl who is raised by an Indigenous community but wants to find her roots. It’s mostly a feelgood story, but there is some darkness, foreboding and adventure involved in Luz’s journey to discover who she is. Which means that the grownups watching will enjoy the show, too.

LUZ: THE LIGHT OF THE HEART: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: People with flashlights searching through the pitch-black woods, while a girl sprints through them, trying to find a place to hide.

The Gist: Luz (Marianna Santos), a 9-year-old girl, is the one running through the woods. She follows the lead of the tiny firefly that emanates from the firefly pendant she wears. When a van from the Prex Preparatory School overheats on the side of a deserted road and Marcos (Daniel Rocha), the biology professor and fourth-grade tutor, opens up the back, Luz decides to jump in and hide amongst the plants in the back.

Flash back nine years, where a woman is in the hospital giving birth to a baby girl. She calls her husband, who is driving on a rainy night on a dark road; she asks him if he’s told his father about the baby yet. He assures her he has, though he seems to be lying. He drops his phone on the floor, and when he goes to pick it up, he runs head-on into a truck, killing him instantly.

His father, Carlos Ferreria (Celso Frateschi), a wealthy and influential rancher, blames his “gold digger” of a daughter-in-law for his son’s death, and he orders a henchman to abduct the baby girl and bring her to him; his instructions are to pay off the nurses to tell the mother that the baby died. After the baby arrives, Carlos orders his right-hand man, Balthazar (Marcos Pasquim), to leave the baby in the woods. But Balthazar, seeing dozens of fireflies rise up around the child, thinks the baby deserves a chance at a good life.

He brings her to Ga (Claudia Di Moura), a Kaingang leader and shaman. To raise an outsider as Kaingang isn’t easy, but Ga agrees to do it, and names the girl Luz. Balthazar tells her that Luz should be informed that both her parents are dead, and that she needs to stay away from places where Carlos or one of his people might find her.

Back to the present day; as Luz celebrates her birthday with the rest of the Kaingang tribe, word gets back to Carlos via a new employee named Valeria (Mel Lisboa) that Luz is with the Kaingangs. When Balthazar gets wind of it, he goes to warn Ga and tell her to get Luz away from the community; when Luz overhears their conversation, she demands to hear the truth. Ga steps up and tells her most of it (except the part about her mother still being alive), which prompts Luz to run away through the woods.

She stows away with Professor Marcos in the van as he drives into the city and back to the Prex school. There, he tries to settle yet another dispute between rivals Joca (Francisco Galvão) and Sabina (Mari Campolongo). Luz tries to hide in Marcos’ plant lab, but doesn’t stay hidden long.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Though the kids in Luz: The Light Of The Heart are quite a bit younger than the teens in Percy Jackson And The Olympians, both shows give off similar vibes.

Our Take: Luz: The Light Of The Heart, created by Guillermo Pendino, is the first Brazilian Netflix original aimed at kids, but it’s certainly not written exclusively for a kid audience. It intelligently tries to build a story of a girl who is fiercely independent and smart, who wants to find out where she comes from. She acknowledges that the Indigenous community that raised her was loving and supportive, but knows that she has a different background and wants to explore it.

As Luz makes her way through the Prex school and gets to know the kids there, we’ll see how well she fits in, or maybe how well the students adapt to the new and somewhat strange kid in their midst. All the while, Carlos will be pursuing her — though to what end this far down the line, we’re not sure — and both Ga and Balthazar will be making sure Luz stays out of the evil rancher’s clutches. All the while, Luz will be led by the light that emanates from her firefly pendant, which Balthazar retrieved from the accident scene, knowing that her dad passed on something special to her.

There seems like there will be some dark moments during the show, mostly related to Carlos and his pursuit of Lux, but a lot of the action will take place at the Prex school, which is brightly-colored and full of smart kids doing smart kid things. So if there is some scariness, it’ll be kid-level scariness, something that your preteen can handle with ease.

But the show’s writers aren’t writing down to its audience in the least. The kids aren’t scamps, they’re just curious. The adults aren’t just idiot facilitators to the kids’ adventures; they’re trying to protect the kids while giving them the latitude to explore. It’s definitely a kids show that is designed to entertain adults, as well, and those are the best kinds of kids shows to us.

What Age Group Is This For?: Because there is some darkness and foreboding in this story, we think this is good for kids 8 and up.

Parting Shot: Joca finds Luz behind a closed door, and both kids scream.

Sleeper Star: Pretty much all of the kids at the school will be fun to watch, because they’re at the right age to be resourceful and clever without seeming precocious.

Most Pilot-y Line: Ga tells Balthazar that Luz deserves to know the whole truth, then proceeds to tell her that both her parents are dead. Wow.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Luz: The Light Of The Heart is a series that’s for kids but can be enjoyed by everyone, and tells an Indigenous story that we don’t often hear about.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.