Arvingerne

Signe Larsen, a young woman from relatively modest stock--working in a flower shop--discovers she was adopted and that her real family is a rich and decadent lot, fighting over the titular legacy of her recently deceased mother.

This sounds like a terribly worn out premise, but the writers actually succeed in transfiguring it by carefully avoiding the vulgar clichés we might expect: this is 'Dallas' alright, but 'Dallas' for the XXist century. The dead mother was not an oil magnate but a conceptual artist, the brothers and sisters are curators, lawyers and beach bums, all rather bohemian in their own privileged way. In place of gold watches and sports cars, we have conspicuous displays of cultural capitals (art books, white cubes and subdued designer dresses.) Behind this urbane and cultured façade, however, J. R. has nothing on any of them: Gro the curator dress her self-interest as selfless dedication to her mother's memory, Emil's devil-may-care altruism is fueled by privilege and self-indulgence, Thomas is perpetually escaping from his responsibility, and Frederik alone wears his stony heart on his sleeve.

The result is a populist Cinderella: Signe stands for honest work and common sense. Her decadent siblings, with their high-falutin modern culture and high-minded hypocrisy, are the fabled 'cosmopolitan elite'. But Avringerne is not *genuinely* populist: it is too well written, too well acted, too tastefully produced to appeal to the little man. Signe, pure as a lamb, perpetually turning the other cheek, is also the least compelling of the characters. This is a populist tale not for the little man but for the self-hating cosmopolitan elite.

The result is compelling: acutely observed, well cast, restrained and mostly credible. It does suffer from the failings of its soap opera model: as the episode count rises, the accumulation of peripeteia inevitably becomes less and less believable, so that by the end of the first season the viewer is already hard-pressed to suspend disbelief. By the end of the second, it has all become quite strained and repetitive. One wishes the writers had spread out their episode in time, avoiding thereby the artificiality of perpetual emergency and giving their characters time to grow.

This is one of those series that you either love or hate. There's hardly anything in between. Three seasons show how all kinds of things are happening within a family, but nothing ever really changes. It is however better than your average soap if you like drama, failing relationships, people not learning from earlier mistakes and all kinds of other psychological issues. It's going nowhere but kept me watching, because of the setting, curiosity and also the great acting. At times it feels as if you're watching a documentary instead of a television series. Just try it. You will find out soon enough if this is something for you.

The reason I gave it only 7 stars is the fact that the series just has too much storylines that start but are not finished properly. I consider that to be a major flaw in the scenario next to the sometimes terrible leaps in time, where you can only conclude that there obviously has been some kind of development.

Well there you have it: television as it should be. You do not see such apparently effortless perfection very often. Please do not wait for US remakes, treat yourself to the original! Very often, lead characters are well played, and you see some mediocre work here and there in the background. What strikes me with Arvingerne is that there is not a single instant where I can recall a glitch or less convincing acting. It is miraculous; where do children for example learn to act like that? The plot is a real actors' challenge, normal people turning into devils when a large inheritance seems to be coming their way, and back again into loving, good people when things settle down for a moment. Very often parties with loud music and dancing are hard to film, it is difficult to get a large cast of supporting actors to look like they are having fun. No problem for the Arvingerne crew! A special mention for Carsten Bjørnlund, playing the complex character of Frederik Grønnegaard. A very impressive performance indeed. There was for example one love scene where the point was that love at that juncture was awkward. I don't know how an actor is supposed to get that across, but he did, very movingly.

Ignore some critics like boomeran......they may not read subtitles. ...or ...well just missed it.

Nice to see known danish actors draw on their skills for variety of characters. Story moves along and some sneaks up on you. Wish there were some more seasons. There are a few other danish and Swedish shows with similar family turmoil. Some of the shots seem to remind me of the great Susanne Beir winners. Expressions can tell us so much.

I liked the whole story but especially the odd folks. Tryne was great...seen her in about 8 other movies and she was perfect in this one. Someone mentioned criticizing it as a train wreck. Well yeah the family is....a fast moving cone at that. Have fun.

It is difficult to not give this series a 10, but one always imagines something can be better. In this story, set in Funen, the island of Hans Christian Anderson, a family encounters itself in all its complex, passionate, devious depths. The writer Maya Ilsøe is superb -- fascinating concerns with truth and lie, with nature and art, with the truth about fathers and mothers, and the deviations of children who have to live with their lies.

The tale is sensitively brought to our eyes by intelligent actors and producers. I have long been a fan of Danish TV, and this lives up to the best of it. Hoping for a strong 3rd season, which I understand will be the last.