Families Like Ours

Thomas Vinterberg's series "Families Like Ours" is an ambitious tale about a Danish family facing an apocalyptic crisis. The acting is decent, but it is difficult to sympathize with the characters as they often make incredibly foolish decisions.

From the beginning of the series, we see the family navigate through a series of catastrophic choices that only worsen their situation. Their inability to think rationally and act sensibly makes it hard for viewers to engage emotionally. Instead of learning from their mistakes, they repeat them over and over, which can be frustrating to watch.

Their decisions are often driven by extreme stupidity and short-term thinking, It is hard to feel sympathy for characters who seemingly do not learn from their mistakes and continue to put themselves and others in danger.

Although the series has its strong moments and manages to create an intense atmosphere, it is difficult to overlook the many foolish decisions the family makes. This makes it challenging to invest emotionally in their fate and leaves the viewer feeling frustrated rather than empathetic.

In Thomas Vinterberg's Families Like Ours (Familier som vores), characters face impossible decisions in what could have been an over-the-top apocalyptic sci-fi series. Instead, within the environmental framework of disaster, Vinterberg stays focused on the human cost. It's ironic to see some reviewers question how certain characters could be so stupid or myopic in their decision making, but the series shows how difficult it is for people faced with impossible choices, particularly emotional ones, to think clearly when they're losing everything else.

The series is blessed with some excellent Danish actors--but it's the two young leads (Amaryllis April August and Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt) who pull us in and keep us connected. It isn't that the other actors aren't excellent (Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Paprika Steen always reliable)--but the stories of Laura and Elias are simply more riveting--and extreme. The series also pushes at the notion that becoming a refugee can only happen to "others," illustrating what happens when even well-off Danes become unwanted migrants. The human dilemma is simply human, at all costs, even if you start out on better financial footing.

It's very hard to watch some of this series, especially some of the violence, but it's necessary to see what can happen to anyone. Determination alone doesn't ensure anything in a world like this--though it helps. Sometimes faith and acceptance bring some stability, as with Fanny (Steen), and at others it brings disaster anyway. We move toward an unclear resolution, the most we can hope for in this fictive world.

There was the Kierkegaard quote on the leap of faith but this series remained stuck in the aesthetic phase fair and square. Upper middle class families tumble down the wheel of fortune to expose how bad we are with refugees and how awful the Poles are. At the same time the protagonists lack a realistic sense of self-preservation and resilience, in other words: quite dumb. In its attempt to be a morality play its ethics and lack of humanism are very problamatic. So quote Kierkegaard as much as you like: on the surface, okayish for a few hours of entertainment but deeply flawed in its political messaging and dramatic depth, zero fathoms deep.

I've seen quite a few negative reviews here - but don't let that stop you watching this well-produced and well-acted series about how an environmental crisis turns life upside down for a middle-class Copenhagen family. It does require a certain suspension of belief in that such a crisis would hopefully be managed more sustainably than it is in this drama. But you never know, and anyway, it's fiction not a documentary.

The actors were incredible and the script was well-written. What I thought was most valuable was the way the series created a strong engagement for the characters, who in many ways were the same as the series' target group - an average middle class family. Once that engagement was in place we were led through a series of increasingly uncomfortable situations, where some poorly-considered decisions made things go from bad to worse. If you're a parent you will be able to identify with the painful sense of concern that arises when children are forced into dangerous situations.

We don't really want to know about environmental crises, or about the hell that refugees face, so it's easier to just dismiss the series, than to experience those uncomfortable feelings. Watch this series with an open mind and you will be rewarded with a thought-provoking and meaningful experience.

I was looking forward to this series with a certain amount of expectation. Knowing many of the strong films by Vinterberg - The Biggest Heroes, The Celebration, The Hunt, Another Round, and my favourite: Submarino (2010) - I felt quite confident about what to expect in terms of craftsmanship. Also the cast, with strong forces like Thomas Bo Larsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Esben Smed, Paprika Steen, and David Dencik would normally be seen as adequate guarantees of great performances.

I like the idea behind the plot, which I think shares bonds to the short story "Hvis der blev krig i Norden" ('If War Should Occur in the North', own translation) but the way the story has unfolded so far is with some lenghts from the standards I had hoped for. More than half though all 7 episodes, the plot seems stuck in a moment of a catastrophe that you simply do not buy. All the streets of inner Copenhagen and those of the suburbs appear completely passable, yet the country is closing down (!) because of rising sea level! In reality btw, most of historic Copenhagen is situated only a few meters above sea level. This means, the story clings on to a narrative of disastrous climate changes that you need to understand but never get to see the consequences of. Only in an epilogue of the last chapter of the series you get an overview of some of the consequences, although, it still appears like a strongly forced decision to shut down a country.

And then the characters... Hardly anyone in particular deliver on the scale you could expect, perhaps with the exception of Dencik, who as usual portrays with a grit and with emotions on the outside. Alas, his role is minimised and not followed in the last part, where we only follow Laura's destiny. What's more astute is that not many of the characters come out as strongly sympathetic, which makes it hard to be engaged in how they will manage. At the center of the plot we meet Laura, nicely portrayed by Amaryllis August, and around her a few actors stand out, e.g. Magnus Millang and Asta Kamma August, but the characters they play are not persuasively build as they appear somewhat one-dimensional and take odd decisions that cannot only be explained via a confrontation with chaotic implications. As we leave Laura in episode 3, she has only just made a rather existential decision and then in the midst of the succeeding episode, she realises the consequences of that, although she already dealt with that previously, and only then she begins to act it out. Of course a little late it appears, and that nonsensical development disrupts our understanding of the character - yes, she's young, yes, she's put in a complete chaos she and no one are in control of, but still, (duh) it doesn't help the plot and our conception of the narrative. Another critical issue is that some scenes could be improved by retakes and then the whole story is so far burdened by no variation in tension, which I find is the most annoying aspect. Also, too much of the story is put on young shoulders, who don't own the expertise of acting but mostly due to inadequate scripting of the characters. Amyrillis August portrays a young mother, at first very convincing, but her character undergoes a strange personal swift mood change (in ep. 4) that doesn't help caring for the young mother. And then she's like many other characters put away in the last episode. Naturally, we cannot follow all but the decision to put in a strong role and then not follow her journey to the end is a frustration that is mirrored in several others. Basically, she plays the only part of working class Denmark, and everything else is centered on a narrow elite of families representing 1% of the Danish population.

The production costs naturally limit what you are able to realise, but why then use the few locations you dispose of to try to sell something it won't stand a chance to materialise as? It's quite obviously a story that takes place and progress via the dialogues and thus more suitable for something for the stage - that is if you cut down the length 'cause after four episodes we are into a 7 episodes' series, but it appears like 30 minutes into a 2 hour long film, despite knowing we're half way through. I hope that I'm mistaken concerning my current expectations as to what will occur in the last three remaining chapters, but fact is, I was already a bit bored. Which means: I had lost hope for this, and my state had actually only put me pondering whether it would be worth following the next chapters. I still hoped for more but for the whole plot and the execution was a disappointing affair.

EDIT: after watching episode 4, I have granted the series another star (now going on 4), not because that means I will eventually end up handing it 7 (unlikely) when all episodes are through, but my initial verdict with 3/10 does seem a bit harsh now. I still kinda like the idea of the story and some of the characters - it's not their fault the script lacks here and there - but it's still a long way to make this a pursuassive and recommended series to follow. I guess, the fourth episode convinced me to see all episodes, though, as some twist and turns have made the story a bit more interesting - and I basically really want to see what Vinterberg has put his work into.

FINAL EDIT after 7 episodes: Overall I hand the series 4 / 10 stars. With the last three episodes, we follow the characters on their individual journeys in foreign countries, but the destinations are far from logical. You could argue that in times of catastrophe there would be no logic, but choosing Poland, Finland, and Romania as top priorities is hard to swallow. What happened to Norway, Sweden, the British Isles, and Canada/ Australia/ New Zealand for that matter? Meaning countries with similar culture, and less density in population. Of course Vinterberg intends to strengthen the idea of a world turned upside down with the spoiled elite turned into what has more in common with contemporary refugees from Syria, Sudan, Ukraine, Eritrea, Palestine... and we wouldn't understand that if the families would seek refuge in other wealthy economies. So, that's just another "absurdity" to accept.

Without spoiling the end, I felt like a revisit to Von Trier and his "Breaking the Waves". The analogy to existential despair is touching but also forced, unnatural and a much unwanted director's remark to yell out this.is.the.end.of.the.story!

In retrospect, the story should have let us know what we are dealing with. What's at stake. Show us. Pick people from more than just a narrow community, when portraying a whole country. Use a logical mindset to the created characters - even when things go wrong, most people still act as responsible individuals.

A strong starting point ends with too many loose ends.