‘Secrets We Keep’: Rich Danish White People Problems

Secrets We Keep, the new and highly successful Danish Netflix six-part miniseries, is a gritty piece of Nordic Noir, which has become a critically acclaimed genre and an addiction for global audiences.

An impressive catalog of films and limited series has consolidated the high level of production, performances, and plots that the Scandinavians are developing with very specific characteristics: the stories told, always in direct language, devoid of metaphors, here go straight to the point, with brutal social critiques; strong characters (mostly female) who struggle with moral ambiguity; absolute realism in a narrative that relies on cinematography that explores the natural setting of those countries; rain, snow, desolate landscapes that provide not only beauty but mystery and an atmosphere as dark as the plots the characters are involved in. And Secrets We Keep (created by Ingeborg Topsøe) has all of this, in a dense packaging that is as sinister as it is sad and painfully realistic.

Living large, or at large

Secrets We Keep takes place in an upper-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Copenhagen. Everything looks immaculate. The art direction is impeccable in showing us the lifestyle of wealthy Danish people: the vehicles (a Porsche Taycan Turbo is a nice touch), the wardrobes, the interior design of the homes. But above all, the attitude and the development of the characters’ daily lives; two neighboring families who, in the eyes of any living being on this planet, are the perfect portrait of what a successful-happy family should be.

Our first perfect family is Katarina (played by Danica Curcic), her husband Rasmus Hoffmann (Lars Ranthe), and their 15-year-old son, Oscar. They also have a young Filipino au pair, Ruby (Donna Levkovski).

Their neighbors, also a perfect family, are Cecilie (Marie Bach Hansen), her husband Mike Vinter-Jensen (Simon Sears), a lawyer who is not only a lawyer but also the lawyer and close friend of his neighbor Rasmus, and their two children, Viggo (Lukas Zuperka), who is around 14 years old, and their little daughter, Vera. This family also has an au pair, Angel (Excel Busano). And so far, these families are perfect only on the surface. What comes next is pure terror, and the scariest kind: the real kind, the kind that happens in too many parts of the world.

Parents and kids

In Secrets We Keep, two parallel plots unfold. The main one begins with Cecilie driving home and waving at a woman throwing something into a trash can. This woman pretends not to notice. Cecilie arrives home. That evening, her son, Viggo, invites his neighbor, Oscar, over for dinner. Cecilie’s au pair, Angel, asks if her friend, Ruby, Oscar’s au pair, can come too. Cecilie accepts. And everything proceeds normally, except for one thing: the woman Cecilie saw earlier was Ruby, who denies having seen her that day.

Then, Oscar’s mother, Katarina, visits Cecilie. And in a moment alone together, Ruby, in complete desperation, asks Cecilie to help her leave Katarina’s house, saying she can’t stand living there anymore. But Cecilie can’t get involved and recommends talking to her employers; they’re the only ones who can handle whatever the problem is. Saddened, Ruby leaves.

The next day, Cecilie visits Katarina and asks about Ruby, who, according to Katarina, has disappeared. Just like that, out of nowhere. Apparently, she’s gone.

Cecilia mentions this to Angel, who searches for information with other au pair friends (all Filipino), and none of them have heard from Ruby. They all think nothing bad has happened to her, that she’ll turn up soon. The only person concerned about Ruby’s disappearance is Cecilie.

The police don’t pay much attention either. They assign a rookie officer, Aicha (Sara Fanta Traore), and the investigation begins. But Cecilie suspects something nefarious is going on here. And God, she’s right!

The second plot, which is directly related to the first, focuses on Viggo and Oscar. Led by Oscar, a group of school kids has a pornographic chat group where the only rule is: if you don’t hand over some personal material, you’re out. Under peer pressure, Viggo secretly records his au pair, Angel, as she undresses and sends the video to the group.

But from that moment on, after a video Oscar showed him, Viggo tries to talk to his mother to tell her what’s happening, but both she and the other adults are very busy. Cecilie immerses herself in the search for Ruby, and no one pays attention to Viggo, which ultimately turns out to be a big mistake.

Three key events occur: for some strange reason, and despite the passing of days (and episodes), it seems that the wealthy in Denmark don’t get trash service as quickly as one would imagine. Cecilie goes to the trash can she saw Ruby throw something into a few days ago and finds a pregnancy test. Ruby was pregnant.

The police officer, Aicha, corroborates this hypothesis when she decides to visit the church Ruby attended and asks the pastor to reveal some of Ruby’s confession secrets. I suppose the confession secret works differently in Denmark than in the rest of the world, because this pastor spills the beans: she suspected she was pregnant, thought about having an abortion but didn’t dare; oh, and someone raped her. The pastor suggests that Aicha talk to the man who impregnated her, the rapist. Yeah, right. As if this were easy.

Cecilie suspects Katarina’s husband, but police find Ruby’s purse in some bushes. Inside a card for a luxury hotel. She went to that hotel with a man who drove a Porsche Taycan Turbo, and Cecilie’s husband, Mike, happens to own one. And here we discover another secret: someone accused Mike of rape in the past.

While this is going on, the kids keep swapping pornography, and no one wants to hear what Viggo has to say.

In the final episode, when tensions are at their peak, they find Ruby’s body in a lake. She was pregnant. The police perform DNA tests on Mike, which come back negative. Then on Rasmus, and here’s the spoiler: it comes back 24% positive, suggesting that while it wasn’t him, it was someone in the family.

Although the police only have one theory: Ruby committed suicide.

Finally, and after another event I won’t tell you about, Viggo gets a hearing. He says Oscar showed him a video in which he raped Ruby. But no one believes him. And when the police search Oscar’s house for evidence, his mother, Katarina, takes it upon herself to eliminate everything. There’s nothing that incriminates her son.

There are no other suspects. Cecilie and Katarina have a final confrontation. And although Katarina doesn’t admit anything, Secrets We Keep makes it clear that a mother will do anything, even the most horrific thing, for her son.