Families Like Ours - Nur mit Euch

It's so annoying to see this Laura character and her foolish naivety. She must be the biggest crybaby ever.

Stubborn, silly, and definitely not a representative 17-18 year old Scandinavian girl. The idea for this series is good, but the script is not realistic. I know Danes are stubborn, but some of these characters are both stubborn and so incredibly lacking in street smarts. Too bad Winterberg did not see this. It feels like the series misses the mark on portraying believable characters, making it harder to feel invested in their journey. Such a wasted opportunity for depth.

I can just agree with the Gilles Character that says Jacob and his wife are just spoiled persons.

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.

The idea is good here. Showcase what it means to be a refugee, by making the Danes go through what is happening to many in war ridden countries. Acting is fine as well.

However it just becomes too forced. There are situations where main characters makes such stupid decisions that it became unbelieveable and nearly unbearable to watch. Add to this that it is incredibly slow at times, especialy the last few episodes are just dragged out. It could have been maybe 4 episodes instead.

I would still recommend Danes to watch it as a learning exercise of how it is to be a refugee. The empathy refugees deserve is for sure missing in todays society.

A country where everyone live in big houses or mansions, drives Mercedes or Audis and every adult is either an architect, diplomat, psychiatrist or entrepenour. Seemingly there is no working class or poor in Denmark.

'Families Like Ours' tries to show what happens to those "ordinary" danes, and how they act and react, facing a shutdown because of rising sea levels.

The build-up is really slow. First example of "something is not right here" is when the architect notices that the water level in his toilet has risen (I kid you not). Then there's the usual "nobody panic" message from the primeminister on television (causing everyone to panic more or less of course). Immediately after we're off to a whole string of sequences and episodes of every man (or woman or family) for themselves. But they are not fighting for survival because the threat isn't imminent. It's more a capitalist nightmare of "who will lose most of their money" before time runs out? And who will stick together? Each chasing their own version of safety, Most behaving unbelievably selfish.

The acting is okay (Vinterberg knows how to direct his cast), but the script could use a lot more fine-tuning. Trying to pick up how teens in Denmark speak, they just inserted words like "sick" here and there in their dialouge for example. There are also servere pacing issues throughout and I really think this would have been a better show if it was made as a two-hour movie instead. Actually some episodes are actually kind of boring.

Maybe if they pick it up in US? Their adaption could be called "Families like ours in 90210"

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.