Segredos de Natal

It's slow and beautiful. Sometimes a bit confusing. But the writing, the emotions and twists are perfectly placed. The ratings are getting really harsh lately. It's like there is no way to make people happy anymore.

[Edit: watched until the end. Tried to sum up.] In ordner to make this review without spoilers, this is the only thing i can say. I watched all three episodes and i am not amused. This series thinks, every single human in its audience is so dumb, that it comes up with a total sensless plot. In fact i beleave the plot was written by 14 year old teenagers who naively are building up a crime thriller psycho plot without the key components of these genres.

The series is over explanatory. It does not leave room for interpretation or time and space for thinking about it. 50% of the dialouge consist of names shouted at each other for rembering the dumb audience who is who. Besides that the characters are constantly repeating themselves like a cliche bomb. Its like a story in the head of the already mentioned teenagers - only with more strong language to give it a pseudo contemporary and adult flavor.

Why? The title and the thumbnails, even the short description were promising. The series can not catch up what the marketing promised. It feels like an afternoon tv show for senior audience in german television.

I would say Holiday Secrets is a typical Netflix family drama based on flashbacks which bring you back in time and help to look into cupboard in search for family skeletons. I would say too many flashbacks as they made it too difficult to follow the story and distinguish family women from each other, at least until the middle of the episode 2. Which was half of the series in total.

Anyway, the mini series was rather intriguing, well written and well directed. Nice to see the windy Baltic Sea landscape and dune views which made some fresh difference from usual Mediterranean coastline in Netflix shows.

Since it's a German series, my expectations were very low. Being presented all the BS on the public channels. So I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised after having watched that mini-series. Watching only US/UK/AUS-shows for the last 10+ years this one could keep up with some of them.

The scenery is beautiful. I was born and raised in the northern part of Germany so the coast was always close to me. Maybe that fact has biased my opinion. Nontheless, Christiane Paul and Corinna Harfouch do their jobs very well when it comes to acting.

The plot, however, lacks here and there some refinement. Throwing slang and being "super loose" in a family conversation doesn't make up for a weak content.

Is it believable, somehow yes, and somehow no.

It's overall a good series where you find yourself saying "na ja" (engl.: "Oh, well..." with a condescending undertone) quite a lot, so I have to back up that one previous review.

If you have time for 3x 30-40min and do not want to think a lot and being well entertained, just give it a shot. You won't have the feeling that you wasted your time.

And I like dark and slow. Very good actors. Lots of yanking back and forth in timeline, which mostly made sense but you can forget who is who. Alma's was a story I wish we'd heard more about. I'd give it 7.5, and hope others will try it. A 'Netflix original' so watch it there.