Synden: when Scandinavian noir becomes routine

The story of Synden is set on the Bjäre Peninsula in southern Sweden. Dani Anttila is an impeccable detective in her professional life, but in her private life, she is overwhelmed by a complex family situation, linked to her only son's drug addiction. One day, she is assigned, along with her new partner Malik, to a missing person's case.

The young man who vanished without a trace is Silas, a teenager Dani had temporarily fostered years earlier, immediately creating that emotional conflict of interest that should generate tension throughout the five episodes that make up the miniseries. When Silas's body is found brutally murdered on a farm, dead by drowning, the investigation leads the two detectives to uncover the skeletons in the closet of a dark family feud that has been dragging on for generations.

Synden: Who is Without Sin

Nordic noir has achieved incredible success in the last twenty years, breaking out of national borders to become a globally recognizable genre, endowed with aesthetic and narrative codes as rigid as the climate that serves as the backdrop for the events. Scandinavia has embraced a version of crime drama characterized by desolate landscapes, emotionally "broken" protagonists, and that perpetually desaturated photography that transforms even the summer sun into something dark and elusive. An approach often overused to the point of becoming laden with clichés.

Synden, distributed internationally (but not in Italy) by Netflix as Land of Sin, follows the formula so obviously that it risks becoming pure mannerism. Created, written, and directed in its entirety by Peter Grönlund, a director already known for Goliat (2018) and for the series Beartown (2020-2022), the operation moves on such familiar ground that it proves extremely predictable, and even the style itself adapts to that imagery that the public has now become accustomed to. The fact that the events are limited to a relatively small core of characters, with most of the dynamics revolving around a single, albeit numerous, family, risks denying further nuances to a story that sinks into the difficult decadence of this small provincial community.

Hearts of Darkness

The story relies on Dani's endemic flaws, a woman who instead of always doing the right thing often does the wrong thing: she is not an understanding mother towards an undoubtedly difficult son, she hides or manipulates investigations as it suits her, she gets into trouble often gratuitously. Choices that make it difficult to relate to her on a deeper level and truly empathize with her. And the very background that should have led her to such decisions and her rough character is addressed with a certain superficiality, letting events overwhelm her without any real emotional impetus.

So much so that the most charismatic figure ends up being that of the local patriarch Elis, played by Peter Gantman, a personality as menacing as he is potentially salvific, whose relationship with Dani becomes the key element of the entire narrative. All built in a microcosm based on secrets and lies, ready to re-emerge in belated reckonings or in drastic situations that could definitively change the status quo.

The approximately three and a half hours of total viewing are set at a deliberately slow pace, stretching out a plot destined for only one possible epilogue even more than necessary. It's a shame that in this partially minimalist approach, some fundamental cornerstones were lost, including completely anonymous secondary figures (Dani's partner is as if he doesn't exist) and plot twists that become more predictable than expected, leading to that partially comforting epilogue that arrives after a long succession of assorted dramas.