Families often hold many secrets, but in Anna Emma Haudal’s six-part drama series Generations, there are secrets upon secrets upon secrets. Murder, misogyny, paranormal, extramarital affairs, and even the beginning of the Covid pandemic all feature in a heady mix of misunderstanding and retribution.
Things begin as a conventional Nordic police procedural, as builders working in the attic of an apartment block in Frederiksberg on the outskirts of Copenhagen discover the mummified remains of an infant concealed behind the panelling in a shoe box.
The mystery of who committed the crime is short-lived, however, as 87-year-old apartment resident Martha calmly tells police the child was hers, and she killed it.
The reveal of the culprit is by no means a plot spoiler; there is no attempt to hide the perpetrator here. What is more important is to discover the backstory that led this grandmother to commit such a horrific crime, a powerful, believable exploration of how one action can echo across generations with devastating force.
Luckily for Martha her granddaughter Rikke is a respected lawyer and takes on the case, intent on exonerating her grandmother.
The case brings three generations of the family together, with Martha’s daughter Tina and Rikke’s sister Anso reunited in the Frederiksberg apartment. This though, is a family for whom the skeleton in the attic is just a symbol of many more metaphorical skeletons in the closet.
Rikke is balancing her career and marriage with an extramarital affair, pitting her outwardly respectable lifestyle with snatched illicit meets for risky fetish-led sexual encounters.
Sister Anso faces her own dilemma, finally pregnant after years of trying but lying to boyfriend Issaac about the scan results of the fetus’ health. The yearning desire to finally deliver a child, balanced against the trepidation of mothering a potentially disabled child, is well handled.
Generations proves to be a powerhouse for female performers, a rare vehicle that showcases not just a strong female lead but an entire central core of strongly written women.
Central to the success is Martha herself. Ulla Henningsen, who would be a frontrunner if ever a biopic of Denmark’s Queen Margrethe comes to the screen. Henningsen grips attention with a performance befitting the matriarch of this troubled family. Outwardly taciturn, Henningsen’s performance shows a woman shaped by having to live constantly with the remorse of her actions from decades previously.
Holding secrets close to her chest in an attempt to get the punishment and retribution she feels she now deserves, she slowly reveals the pain of love lost almost a lifetime ago. Henningsen delivers a subtle yet devastating performance, conveying decades of pain with the smallest of gestures.
There is also a striking performance from Rikke Eberhardt Isen as granddaughter-turned-lawyer, Rikke. Complex and something of an enigma – the public respectable face paired with a much darker private side – Isen switches from one facet to another with ease.
Rikke, like her mother Tina (Anette Støvelbæk) shares a connection to the paranormal; the lawyer seemingly able to have connections to the spirit world, her mother Tina at the centre of paranormal abnormalities on the Danish coast.
These paranormal elements are, perhaps, the series’s weakest point. In what is already a strong and compelling story about family relationships, trauma and generational differences, the paranormal elements seem to jar and fit uneasily alongside the conventional story arc.
At one point in episode five Tina enters an underground cavern for a hallucinogenic scene bathed in red light, more akin to David Lynch’s iconic 90s series Twin Peaks than a conventional drama. The sudden shift from the normal to the paranormal sits uncomfortably and somewhat unnecessarily.
When directors Ville Gideon Sörman and Thomas Daneskov bring the action back to the harsh realities of everyday life and crisis, the series regains its strength. Generations is, at its core, powerful because of its believability and depiction of how a simple action can snowball into an overwhelming situation.
That believability is perfectly portrayed in a chillingly resonant subplot around Rikke and Anso’s sister Lea (Olga Schultz). The aftermath of a drunken teen party sees a sexual image against her will on social media, the betrayal of trust in what she thought was a loving relationship spreading to threaten to overthrow her entire life.
It is a moving and devastating storyline that is portrayed with clinical and chilling accuracy and scores an emotional punch way above anything the disjointed paranormal elements deliver.
Generations is a hugely relevant and rewarding drama, powered by three generations of fiercely compelling women, each trying to forge their own place in the world. A powerhouse drama and a rare vehicle for an entire central core of strongly written female characters.
“Generations is a hugely relevant and rewarding drama, powered by three generations of fiercely compelling women each trying to forge their own place in the world.”
Generations arrives onto the MHZ Streamer in the US from the 31st March – we will keep you posted on any news of the series coming to the UK
