Families Like Ours (2024)
I had hopes this could maybe have been something resembling a Danish version of Time of the Wolf, as the basic premise of showing privileged upper middle class Danish people become refugees, has potential for being really interesting and perhaps eye opening for a lot of us. Putting our current privileged life in perspective and all that.
The problem here is how bad most things is handled in this mini series. The whole setup is a very contrived and not very convincing reason for why the entire country is to be closed down. It has tons of logical issues as well as not being shown in any realistic manner. It is way too peaceful and well managed. I think it would have worked better if they simply skipped that part entirely, and just jump straight into a situation where Danes are now forced to migrate to other European countries and leaving the reason as vague and not defined. Because half way in, it actually started to get a little bit interesting, when we see these different families being thrown beyond their depth in some really challenging situations. I just don’t think it cuts deep enough to really make an impact on the viewer. Vinterberg is too soft and makes it a little too easy to resolve things. Add to that, I think the acting is utterly hokey and plain dumb at times. There is no emotional depth that makes you really believe in the supposed hard situation these people find themselves, other than a few glimpses in a few scenes. By most accounts, really a missed opportunity.
Rating: 2.5