Secrets We Keep was originally titled Reservatet which translates to “The Reserve,” a wealthy neighborhood north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It’s a dark drama of wealth, power, exploitation, and murder. There are no spoilers in this review.
Secrets We Keep is both fascinating and infuriating. It’s a fascinating mystery with surprising reveals, red herrings making various people look guilty, and suspense. It’s infuriating because some of the characters are so imbued with wealth and privilege that they are unable to think with any moral clarity.
Two families live in close proximity. Both employ Filipino women as au pairs. Their normal lives are disrupted when one of the au pairs disappears.
Cecilie (Marie Bach Hansen) is married to Mike (Simon Sears). They have a 14 year old son Viggo (Lukas Zuperka) and a toddler. Angel (Excel Busano) works for them. They treat Angel well. Viggo is very close to her.
Next door live Katarina (Danica Curcic) and Rasmus (Lars Ranthe) with their 14 year old son Oscar (Frode Bilde Rønsholt). The two boys are good friends. Both are part of a group text of young boys who take and share revealing, even pornographic, images of women and girls. Oscar is the instigator in this group and has a drone which he uses to get many videos he shouldn’t be getting.
Their au pair, Ruby (Donna Levkovski), is the one who disappears. Katarina is disdainful of Ruby and treats her badly.
There are a lot of Filipino women in Denmark. They are devout, hard working, and send their money back home. Angel’s sister keeps asking her for more money than she makes.
When Ruby is finally found the police suspect murder. She was pregnant, another complication. Was she raped?
The series is about people with class and privilege vs. vulnerable and unprotected members of society who work for the rich. Cecilie has a strong sense of right and wrong. She helps the policewoman Aicha (Sara Fanta Traore) with everything she learns, even when it looks bad for her own family. Katarina, on the other hand, is argumentative and hostile toward the police.
Despite the difference between the two women in the end wealth and power protect them from any consequences in Ruby’s death. That was the frustrating part of the ending for me: there were no consequences for any of the crimes committed in the series. Does the good we see in Cecilie or the bad we see in Katarina make any difference when it comes down to holding on to power and position? This series is saying that wealth and privilege corrupt even the good. That old expression, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” seems to apply here.
The policewoman, Aicha, figures it out but doesn’t have the evidence to prove it.
I wanted the characters to be more fully fleshed out. The two women needed exploring. The two young boys Oscar and Viggo were key but were largely undeveloped. Some of the Filipino women needed more backstory as well, especially Angel.
Secrets We Keep was written by a woman, Ingeborg Topsøe, and directed by Per Fly. It’s a mix of Danish, Filipino, and English. It’s streaming on Netflix.
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