Liebes Kind (Netflix series, 2023)
Liebes Kind (aka Dear Child) is a captivating six part mystery thriller series, based on the acclaimed novel by Romy Hausmann.
The story, per the official synopsis, concerns a mysterious woman's escape from her harrowing captivity, which points investigators toward the dark truth behind an unsolved disappearance more than ten years earlier.
Liebes Kind is adapted and also directed by the duo Isabel Kleefeld and Julian Pörksen. And they have done a pretty good job.
The beginning of the series seems inspired by the movie Room, in which a woman played by Brie Larson was held captive with her child for years, until they managed to escape. It won Larson an Oscar.
It’s too soon to say whether Dear Child will win as many awards as Room, but it is pretty binge worthy all the same. It starts off all claustrophobic- the man about the house seems to control everything and anything. There are strict rules and the man is to be obeyed at all times. He tells the children, 12 year old Hannah (Naila Schuberth, quite brilliant) and her younger brother Jonathan (Sammy Schrein) when to study, to eat, sleep etc. The mother, Lena (Kim Riedle), is under his thumb as well. She is there to make sure everything goes according to his plans. But she is weak: her voice trembles, her hands shake. She needs to be punished.
This is all made clear in the opening sequence, with additional information provided in flashbacks.
Because early in the first episode Lena and Hannah manage to escape, and the story becomes much bigger. Lena is hit by a car and she and Hannah are taken to hospital. So it also becomes a police story, with Aida Kurd (Hailey Louise Jones) leading the investigation.
Lena’s parents Matthias (Justus von Dohnányi) and Karin (Julia Jenkins) also want to know the truth, but it’s complicated and one important question that needs to be answered is whether Lena actually is the same woman who disappeared over a decade ago.
It’s possible that novelist Romy Hausmann was also inspired by the novel Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, which was in turn made into a major motion picture by David Fincher - you kind of expect Ben Affleck to pop up and make an appearance.
Movies like Room and Gone Girl are right up my alley, so I’m not complaining. This German production soon develops an identity of its own anyway, and keeps you guessing about both what happened and what willhappen after the first couple of episodes.
As acclaimed director Scott Dertickson recently wrote: a good film doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, it just needs to roll it well.
This seems to apply to Liebes Kind in particular. Even if it won’t win a prize for originality, it still delivers the goods.
Which is good news for Netflix, as they seem to be doing well with their productions from Germany, a country which has always had a great reputation when it comes to police series. And Liebes Kind definitely looks like another hit.