The second in the series of Swedish detective thrillers set in the late Fifties concocted a complicated murder mystery involving a bride-to- be, her jilted fiancé (Alexander Stocks), a stepfather with a mysterious past (Bengt Järnblad) and a host of minor characters. Set in a small Swedish village, Christian Eklöw and Christopher Panov's production communicated the hothouse atmosphere, in which everyone knows everyone else's business: secrets cannot be kept for long.
This proved exceptionally ironic, in view of the fact that all the murder suspects, it seemed, were prepared to weave a tissue of lives so as to throw Inspector Christer (Ola Rapace) off the scent. With the help of Ph.D. student Puck (Tuva Novotny), however, he managed to get to the truth of the matter and, in the manner of all good Agatha Christie-derived detective thrillers, revealed the murder in a climactic sequence at the end, when all the suspects were gathered together.
What made KING LILY OF THE VALLEY more interesting, however, was its thematic subtext on the futility of romantic love. The murder victim, it seemed, had a long-standing boyfriend, as well as another admirer Lars-Ove (Philip Panov), who could never admit his true feelings for her. In a village where outward show mattered above all else, she was forced into contracting an unwanted marriage with Joakim. This particular plot-line was contrasted with the romantic tribulations of Puck and her fiancé Eje (Linus Wahlgren): although Linus wanted a white wedding, with Puck ideally wearing his mother's wedding-dress, Puck wanted something else - even though she did not quite know what it was. It seemed as if she was being forced into a similar emotional corner: that is, until a climactic sequence towards the end where she told Eje exactly what she wanted.
Perhaps Puck was a victim of the times: the late Fifties setting in this adaptation proved significant, as it depicted a patriarchal world in which women's life-choices were very limited. Puck was something of a radical character insofar as she did not want to become a homemaker or a child-bearer, but sought a career of her own. However such choices are not available to all women, as the murder victim's fate revealed. The lilies of the valley, that formed a thematic backdrop to this episode, symbolized the futility of most women's struggle to assert themselves.
A melancholy adaptation - although well performed and tightly structured - it offered a pessimistic view of female destiny in mid- twentieth century Sweden.
