Netflix is really opening itself up to the international movie world. In addition to the South Korean Squid Game series, the streaming service also gives us the Danish The Chestnut Man series. While they are both Netflix-funded series outside of the US, they couldn’t be more different.
In a Copenhagen suburb, a woman is found brutally murdered. One of the main pieces of evidence the police have to work with is a small figure of a man made of chestnuts hanging from a nearby tree. This chestnut man links the murder with the disappearance of a child a year earlier. How does all of this fit together?
Once again, I watched this series dubbed in English instead of the original Danish language. While I don’t think the dub was particularly good, I don’t know that it changed my opinion of the show.
I think the best part of the series was the acting. Both Danica Curcic as the main detective, Naia Thulin, and her partner, Mark Hess, played by Mikkel Boe Følsgaard were so good. You could feel everything they were going through, both professionally and personally. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away but the bad guy was also portrayed very well.
Unfortunately, the bad part of the series, in my opinion, is the pacing. Maybe this is a European thing but the show started so slowly. It took me a couple of days just to get through the first two episodes. Once you get past episode three, though? The case picks up and it’s difficult to stop watching. Since the show is only six episodes long, it kinda sucks that the first 1/3 of it is so slow. Maybe if there were some more dramatic cliffhangers at the end of each episode, I would have been drawn in a bit more in the beginning.
The only other issue I had is actually with Netflix and not the show itself. Netflix put this on their list of Halloween thriller movies for 2021. While the show is listed as a psychological thriller, it wasn’t particularly thrilling. It felt more like a police procedural show like Law & Order or NYPD Blue. I don’t think this should have been marketed as a Halloween release. People tend to expect a lot of Halloween fare.
If you enjoy series from outside the US, you would probably like this. But if you are used to American television, you might end up very bored. I do think it is worth a watch if you can power through the slow times.