When a young au pair vanishes in an upper-class Copenhagen suburb, one woman is determined to find out who’s responsible — even if her search implicates her closest friends and loved ones. The Danish drama Secrets We Keep follows a wealthy family as they deal with the fallout from a missing persons case involving their obscenely rich neighbors. Starring Marie Bach Hansen, Simon Sears, and Lars Ranthe, the thriller was created by Ingeborg Topsøe (Wildland, Hanna); directed by Per Fly (Borgen); and written by Topsøe, Ina Bruhn (Darkness: Those Who Kill), and Mads Tafdrup (Speak No Evil).
Check it out at the top of this page.
In one of the most affluent neighborhoods outside of Copenhagen, just about every family has an au pair from the Philippines. Cecilie (Bach Hansen) and her husband Mike are no exception: Their beloved au pair, Angel (Busano), does just about everything around the house, even helping their preteen son get to sleep each night. Cecilie and Mike’s friends and next-door neighbors Rasmus (Ranthe) and Katarina (Curcic) employ an au pair, too — a close friend of Angel’s named Ruby (Levkovski). But one morning, Ruby disappears without a trace. After questioning Rasmus and Katarina about Ruby’s whereabouts, Cecilie grows concerned that they may have had a hand in whatever happened to her. As Cecilie delves deeper into the mystery, she begins to suspect that there may be more people from her inner circle involved than she wants to believe.
No, though it does revolve around Denmark’s au pair culture. The majority of the country’s au pairs are from the Philippines, like in the series.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the power structures within a family,” says series creator Topsøe. “Few people associate Denmark with such ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ homes. Denmark is often portrayed as a very egalitarian society, and I’ve never seen homes like these portrayed on TV. Perhaps it’s a reality we don’t want to acknowledge the existence of …. Au pairs are ‘part of the family,’ while being employed, and parents are well-meaning, while absent. It’s these cold, hard facts — hidden beneath a soft layer of niceness — that intrigues me.”
It takes place in Copenhagen and a nearby suburb.
