User reviews

I didn't know who Jan Stenbeck was, but I saw that this series about him had come out and received great reviews from Swedish newspapers, calling it Sweden's The Godfather.

Before I watched this, I watched a documentary about him, which was good. And as far as I can tell, the series did a great job with telling the story and being realistic.

I wouldn't call this Sweden's version of The Godfather, but it was good and it was much better than I thought it would be.

I need 130 more characters on this reveiw so this is filler: Born into a powerful Swedish family, Jan Stenbeck takes over after his father and brother's deaths. He challenges monopolies, launches TV channels and newspapers, becoming a visionary who changed Sweden, but at a high personal cost.

Stenbeck shows a rare deeper knowledge of how large famimily businesses often operate on a structural level - and how family dynamics can shift when power and greed come into play.

It is, for an outsider, impossible to know how the "Stenbeck imperium" operated in specific detail - but Stenbeck certainly makes a convincing case of how it may have been.

Direction and acting are on point with regard to conveying "the moment". Cinematography is also spot on in that regard. The artistic license feels, very much, in balance - maintaining a high degree of "message" while successfully building drama.

Character development feels nuanced, Kapitanovic dares to develop complex personalities - veering clear from the temptation of presenting individuals as simply "good or bad".

From a larger perspective Stenbeck offers a glimpse into Swedish politics and culture at a time of transition - shifting from "old school" social democracy to a more market driven society.

This is arguably one of the better BOATS (based on a true story) with regard to both; a financial dynasty and a society in charge.

Stenbeck is most definitely watch worthy... and arguably better than that.

The series is shockingly bad. Both the script, direction, and acting performances are embarrassingly clumsy. Even Jakob Oftebro delivers a very weak portray as Jan Stenbeck despite his brilliant credentials. He mostly smirks all the time and does not in any way fill the role of Stenbeck. The series omits many important events in Stenbeck's private and business life, but spends an unreasonable amount of time on his relationship with his wife Merrill - a relationship where Stenbeck is portrayed as a devoted husband and father, but who spends too much time at work in Sweden. In reality, the relationship was quite different, with several extramarital affairs on Stenbeck's part, while it was he who filed for divorce. For budget reasons, it seems British Zoe Boyle got the role of "Merrill," which explains her struggle with American-English accent. Examining the supporting roles a bit closer, one quickly realizes that most of them come directly from an evening course in so-called performing arts. Particularly awful were "Oskar" and "Marcus," whose performances most closely resembled school theater. The sisters "Margaretha" and "Elisabeth" also did very poorly. Other irritations were all the scenes shown but neither explained nor relevant to the plot. On top of everything, the director apparently thought someone should light a cigarette in every effing scene. We know they smoked a lot then! And as a recurring theme, drama, tension, and engagement are completely absent. Instead, "Stenbeck" feels like one long, sleep-inducing episode of Varuhuset* from 1987.

*) Varuhuset (The department store) is a Swedish low-budget, low-quality soap opera, aired in 1987-89.

To portray a great entrepreneur one needs to show the audience what made him such. Otherwise one just explains that he is such. These filmmakers chose the easy way out - or perhaps the way they believed was the right way.

Unfortunately it's not working by a long shot. We are merely told this is a great man because we aren't willing to take the effort to carefully craft the number of scenes in order to achieve a dramatic understanding.

Instead we are bored and left understimulated.

The writing is so inferior and weak that it resembles a Wikipedia biopic that swished by and pretends to be an important.

The lighting is awful and is the overall look - the acting so stiff and weak - the music so nothing - it's all a waste of time.

It could have been something

But it's not.