‘Families Like Ours’ Review: Thomas Vinterberg’s Grimly Prophetic Series Tackles Subject That Is Perhaps Too Huge For The Confines Of A TV Drama – Venice Film Festival
deadline.comEverything is about to rot in the state of Denmark. The sea is rising, water is starting to bubble out of the ground and a decision has been made: the entire country is going to be dismantled and turned into a wind farm, its six million inhabitants sent to whichever country will accept them.
Thomas Vinterberg’s grimly prophetic seven-part series Families Like Ours follows timeworn convention by whittling down a macro issue — one we find too big to think about, mostly — to the stories of a few individuals.
The families of the title are a rondel of comfortably-off Danes who never expected to want for anything, let alone a country: an architect and his wife who think they will be able to transfer their lives to Paris; the wife’s brother and his husband, who have the advantage of advance knowledge of the government’s plans; the architect’s depressive ex-wife who must go to Romania, the short straw offered to people who need government help to emigrate. RELATED: Amos Gitai Dismisses Boycott Calls For Venice Film ‘Why War’; Says Both Hamas and Israel’s Far-Right Government Need To Go: “This Cannot Go On” At the center of things, this woman’s daughter must choose between the two parents, each of them needy in different ways, and thus between Paris and Bucharest.
Her new boyfriend is determined to follow her, wherever she goes. It is this young couple’s desperate, dangerous treks across Europe to find each other that become the leading narrative in what is essentially a collection of experiences. RELATED: ‘September 5’ Director Tim Fehlbaum Says Film About 1972 Olympics Massacre Is Not A “Political Statement” On Israel-Gaza — Venice Film Festival The evacuation process is all very Nordically organized, with few hints of
Read more on deadline.com