Loving Adults is a Danish crime-thriller film on Netflix following a couple who appear to be living the perfect life after their son is declared healthy after recovering from a long-term illness
Story
Christian and Leonora have an 18-year-old-son who has just started to recover from a long-term illness. Leonora finds out that Christian has been cheating on her with Xenia, a woman from his office.
When she confronts him about it, Christian asks for a divorce but Leonora refuses. She threatens to tell the police about a fraud that Christian executed in order to pay for their son’s treatment.
Christian secretly goes to meet Leonora’s old school friend to talk her into getting the divorce and gets to know that Leonora killed her former boyfriend who left her for another girl.
Terrified, Christian murders Leonora, only that it wasn’t Leonora but an innocent woman who dies. When Leonora gets to know, she makes a plan with Christian to murder Xenia.
Christian doesn’t want to do it but his wife has killed before and nothing is stopping her from killing again.
Performances
Special praise is reserved for Sonja Richter who plays Leonora, the wife and ruthless murderer.
She brings the femininity of a wife and mother to the character while also maintaining her persona of a woman who murdered her boyfriend out of jealousy.
In the scene where she admits to the murder, she has the look of a maniac in her eyes with pure, terrifying evil.
Dar Salim who plays the hen-pecked Christian does a good job showing the contrasting nature of his character but seems to lack emotion in certain scenes.
Sus Wilkins plays Xenia with a certain kind of grace and poise that the character deserves considering that Xenia is the “other woman” or the “homewrecker” in the story but at the end of the day, also a victim.
Positives
The film has many twists and turns. The characters were written as multidimensional beings. While Christian was a murderer, he showed remorse.
His guilt consumed him and so did his fickle-heartedness. Leonora was cunning, smart and vicious. At the same time, she fit into family life very well. No one could suspect her capacity for evil.
The film is also written and directed by women and has a female protagonist, placing women at the centre of the narrative.
Negatives
The plot of Loving Adults, although engaging, failed to be convincing.
There were some plot holes. For example, Christian accidentally killing a stranger relied completely on the fact that she was wearing the same clothes as Leonora.
The story seemed superficial. It has too many cliches like the cheating husband and the crazy jealous girlfriend. It also misses out on depicting emotional issues while dealing with themes of divorce and marriage. Rather, it settled for cheap thrills and saucy drama.
Verdict
The characters are convincing and the acting performances are pretty well-executed. But the story falls short in depth, feeling and meaningfulness.
Although the plot is interesting, it also has glaring loopholes. Loving Adults had a lot of untapped potential that would make for a good thriller on a slow day.
Loving Adults
Director: Barbara Topse-Rothenborg
Date Created: 2022-08-28 21:29
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