hwc-60878

This started out well but fell apart for me about halfway through the series.

Nora (a corporate attorney who never goes to work) spends months at her lovely villa in Sandhamn with her husband Henrik (a doctor who never goes to work) and their two children. Nora is a free spirit. Henrik is more serious. Everyone in Sandhamn appear to have plenty of money and free time. There a lot of poorly behaved teenagers (more on that later). Then Nora encounters a corpse while swimming, and detective Thomas comes from Stockholm to investigate. Nora and Thomas are crazy about each other but can never act on it. They stare longingly, share a kiss, have coffee together, and go on boat rides. Henrik has jealous fits and neighbors gossip. That's the basic scenario.

More crimes occur and Nora finds ways to insert herself into every police investigation, episode after episode, and always finds herself in peril; Thomas rescues her and they stare longingly. Thomas has an ex-wife, Pernilla, and they get back together again, but will it work out because Thomas and Nora are secretly in love but just won't act on it? Lifetime channel all the way.

Some of the actual mystery plots are clever and put together well. The scenery is beautiful. There are so many close-ups that you can almost count the pores and beard whiskers. Jakob Cedergren (Thomas) is a strong, solid presence.

Oh, and those teenagers. Numerous episodes center on rude, vicious teenagers partying, taking drugs, drinking to excess, and always getting into big trouble with dire consequences. Parents act amazed that their children would ever do such things. Do these foul mouthed, ill mannered teens receive any parental discipline? Rarely. "Leave your phone on and have fun." But Nora and the police are there to clean it all up.

On the surface, one might think this is another shallow period piece, a slight, fluffy romantic comedy. It is anything but. The more you watch, the writers and lovely cast explore many varying emotions and themes of love, loss, acceptance, war, peace, birth, aging, and death. And yes, comedy - beautifully interwoven throughout. The story revolves around an old hotel by the Danish seaside and the staff and guests whose lives evolve over the course of about 20 years, including World War II. There's excellent attention to period detail and many fine performances, particularly from Mads Wille (Ditmar), Amalie Dollerup (Amanda), Anette Støvelbæk (Alice), and Sigurd Holmen le Dous (Phillip). Highly recommended.

I wanted to like this and write a glowing review. The New Zealand setting and cinematography are outstanding. The plot has an interesting premise. It's fairly well paced. The leading man, Dominic Ona-Ariki, has great presence. However...some of the characters really wear you down being so abrasive, and some of the sound effects and jump cuts are just irritating instead of adding to the drama. The background music veers off into sounding like wonky drain pipes. Two of the female characters are so unpleasant that they distract from whatever plot is at hand. Ultimately it's difficult to sympathize with anyone and care where things are going..

My main point is how in the world did Netflix rate this TV-14? The constant profanity is unbearable. Everyone yells "fu** in nearly every sentence, similar to a Tarantino film. Are today's writers really unable to do better and write something of depth and substance? How lazy to think pervasive "fu***" lend weight and meaning to a story. Add ominous atmosphere, bloody violence, alcoholism, car crashes, brutality to gay men and gay sex taunts, etc. And this cries out for TV-MA.

Five stars is generous and based on the plot foundations, the impressive overall look, and Dominic Ona-Ariki. The rest of it barely rates one star.