What is Danish writer and director Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round, The Hunt) trying to say about Denmark and the current global landscape with his new production, Families Like Ours? The filmmaker certainly covers a lot of ground in the series’ first two episodes. He tackles the environment, family dynamics, love, class struggle, displaced peoples, and economics, to name just a few of the extensive themes broached throughout.
Denmark as an egalitarian haven may not seem like the most obvious of settings for a story that focuses on all those complex topics, but Danish son Vinterberg relishes shining the spotlight on his progressive homeland in an imagined near future. What results is a fascinating look at how impending trauma can change the dynamic of a thriving culture.
When the Danish government discloses the lethal threat of a rapid rise in water levels, the country faces shutdown and an inevitable total evacuation. From the perspective of a handful of friends, family, loved ones, and lovers, Families Like Ours paints a picture of the Scandinavian nation as a microcosm for major concerns appearing on our global horizon. We see a neighbouring Netherlands in economic collapse, national properties on the verge of becoming worthless, banks halting withdrawals, and population relocation by class. In the wake of this environmental threat, the entire population will become refugees. Suddenly, Denmark’s international reputation as a flat, hierarchical society quickly shifts into a desperate and tumultuous one, demonstrating how quickly a culture can collapse when its survival is at stake.
This isn’t a Hollywood production sensationalizing the trauma of a people with explosive action, fighting, and burning streets. Save a few elevated dust-ups, raised voices, momentary vandalism, and fisticuffs, it’s a steady and understated tension. Several diplomatic conversations take place throughout, increasing in difficulty and spite as the ugly situation grows exponentially. There is an implied potential for future violence, but there is also a great deal of love permeating the story, like the couple who chooses to add to their family even in the wake of this calamity.
Unsurprisingly, things become a pressure cooker of pain, loss, fear, heartache, and cruelty. As you get to know the characters, their priorities become clearer. Who knows how those priorities may change in the remaining episodes, but it is fascinating to see the characters doggedly tackle what they’ve been dealt—or the apathy that develops in the face of devastating change.
Possibly the strongest part of the series so far is the makeup of the characters themselves. The audience is not expected to like each of them, but their humanity is enough to retain your interest, whether you can relate to them or not. You want them to land safely because you can see yourself in their shoes, and because the events they are facing are so out of their control. We all know what it’s like to keep secrets (or who to share those secrets with), and what it’s like to fall in love or fall out of it. This particular story asks you to consider whom you would confide in and whom would you deceive. What moral fundamentals would you hold tight to, and which would you leave by the wayside? Questions like that are what keep Families Like Ours compelling.
As the story progresses, and before the borders to the rest of Europe close, the characters are forced to make bold moves in an attempt to control their fate. One of the young characters makes an empowered valedictorian speech to his senior class, talking about conquering the world (to a rousingly positive reception). Several important questions arise around whether racial, economic, and cultural privilege will follow these refugees, as compared to other internationally persecuted refugees from nations considered less prestigious. Similar to white immigrants who refer to themselves as ‘expats’ regardless of their intended duration in foreign locales (the aforementioned relocation being indefinite), in order to differentiate themselves from their less esteemed counter parts.
There seems to be an expectation from the characters that the rest of the world will bend for their “progressive” background or their “racial supremacy.” If that is not the case though, will they be able to cope with the changes ahead? Though this writer is unsure of Vinterberg’s exact intentions, these ideas seem purposeful and add an impressive depth to the overall plot of the series.
Those onboard for these early intense episodes should be excited for what’s to follow.
Families Like Ours is streaming now on CBC Gem.
