“It’s really messy, all this. All of it.” And separation gets very messy in Viaplay’s new eight-part series, Scenes After a Marriage. Centred around a couple navigating the early days of their divorce, the series asks what it means to grieve for a life that once seemed so perfect, even when it wasn’t. Written by Veronica Zacco (The Bridge, Top Dog, Barracuda Queens), co-created by Kristoffer Jönsson (Thunder in My Heart, Honour) and directed by Anders Hazelius (Thin Blue Line, Thunder in My Heart, Inner Circle), the series explores the gamut of human emotions in a lightly humorous and very emotional way.
Lovis (Eva Röse) and Kian (Ardalan Esmaili) have recently separated. Each time they exchange custody of their children, they meet at a roadside café-bar near the bridge connecting Sweden and Denmark. Kian, still holding on to hope, asks Lovis to wait until Christmas, three months away, before signing the divorce papers. As the series unfolds through these brief encounters, both begin to reevaluate their choices, dreams and feelings for each other.
The choice of short, sharp vignettes is inspired: it mirrors the fragmented nature of post-divorce life and allows us to inhabit the world of these characters in concentrated bursts of tension, tenderness and chaos.
The opening scene sets the tone perfectly: Lovis, arms overloaded with kids’ clothes and toys, tumbles out of a taxi after her car fails to start. She’s late, flustered and already sparring with Kian, who wants a calm catch-up in the café-bar where most of the series takes place. Her retort, “Who wants to have a coffee with their ex this soon?”, lands with the sting of truth, while a taxi driver’s wry aside about his third marriage adds a note of bleak humour. From the outset, their arrangement feels messy, improvised and emotionally raw.
The leads are magnetic. Eva Röse, as Lovis, radiates a chaotic, free-spirited energy. Her floral dresses, layered jewellery and tousled hair are a vivid contrast to the muted world around her. She’s impulsive, flirtatious and fiercely independent. Yet, she’s also vulnerable in moments of isolation, like the late-night scene where she scrolls through her contacts in tears. Ardalan Esmaili’s Kian, by contrast, is buttoned-up and intense; his dark, neat attire signalling a craving for order that life no longer affords him. Their chemistry crackles with the embers of a once-blazing fire: tenderness flickers beneath the arguments and every glance hums with subtext. Both actors lean into their opposites beautifully, embodying two people who know each other intimately yet can no longer coexist.
The series is drenched in blues, greys, and washed-out greens, a visual metaphor for a marriage drained of vitality. The central café-bar, with its dark woods and dated décor, feels like a character in itself: a space that has seen better days, much like the relationship it now hosts. It’s not chic or aspirational; it’s ordinary, worn and quietly sad. Against this backdrop, Lovis’s vibrant wardrobe pops like rebellion, underscoring her refusal to be subdued by circumstance.
Emotion ripples through every episode; sometimes erupting in shouting matches, smashed glasses and bitter recriminations. Other times, it surfaces in a glance, a sigh or a sentence choked back. The divorce paperwork-signing scene, with its brittle jokes and champagne masking fury, is a masterclass in tension. The children’s presence – shunted from car to cafe, told to play outside or with Bobby the barman – adds a layer of heartbreak. They’re living out of backpacks, collateral damage in a war neither parent truly wants to wage. By the final episode, set at Christmas, the series achieves a bittersweet symmetry: gifts exchanged in the same tired cafe-bar where it all began. It’s a moment that feels both tender and tragic, a reminder that endings rarely arrive cleanly.
Scenes After a Marriage thrives on nuance, on the jagged edges of love and loss, on the awkward choreography of shared parenting and on the quiet devastation of moving on. The two leads offer up authentic, layered and intense performances that draw you into the bitterness and regret of their world.
“Scenes After A Marriage is a compelling, emotionally resonant watch that will have you eager for the next episode“
Scenes After A Marriage comes to Viaplay UK from the 26th January and Viaplay US from the 29th January.
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