‘Kamikaze’ On HBO Max, A Danish Drama About A Young Adult Trying To Feel Something Again After Her Family Is Killed

HBO Max is starting to branch out with the original series, going to Denmark for the first time with the series Kamikaze. And this series is an idiot; The film is about an 18-year-old girl whose life is perfect until her family dies in a plane crash. She is surrounded by the pitfalls of wealth but is lonely and unable to deal with her pain. But wouldn’t it be weird to say that the show had some funny, and even inspirational, moments? Read on to know more.

KAMIKAZE: SHOULD BE PARTICIPATE OR FORGET?

Opening scene: A young woman’s voice said, “This is the end. The end of it all. Bye.” Then we saw an airplane heading straight for the desert.

Gist: It seems that this young woman, sitting on a plane with her shaven head and tattooed “Pancake syrup” on her left eye, is deliberately crashing the plane to kill herself. After the plane collided, we heard her voice say there’s a before and after for everything.

Here it was: Julie (Marie Reuther) just turned 18. She’s walking around Copenhagen with her fashion buddies, shopping and taking Instagram selfies. She has long blonde hair. But her voice tells us that she remembers exactly what happened just before and right after she received the text that changed her life, even though everything later, eight months after the incident. really, just a blur.

Before the news, Julie’s life was “not good… perfect” as she put it. She has her friends. She’s going to have a party while her parents and brother go to Africa on some sort of trip. She flirted with a waitress at a restaurant right before texting time. And she has a crush on a pool tile installer named Krysztof (Aleksandr Kuznetsov).

But then we met her after she crashed that plane. She wakes up, quite disappointed that she’s still alive. She started vlogging on her phone (she found a portable charger that she said would help the phone last longer). In her video, she speculates on what happened, considering the types of plane crashes that could have killed her instantly.

Text changed her life? It was from her father: “We’re having a problem. Do what you want. I love you. Father.” Somehow, as the plane carrying him, his wife and son was descending, he managed to get that last message to Julie. a huge house, many cars in the garage; her family’s wealth is in her own use but her family is most likely dead.How does she continue after that?

What shows will it remind you of? It’s hard to equate Kamikaze, based on the novel Muleum by Erlend Loe, to any program we can think of. The theme of loss is similar to what we’ve seen on shows like Party of the year, but here, Julie is just one person’s party, which makes things much worse.

Our Take: What’s interesting about Kamikaze, adapted by Johanne Algren from the novel we talked about above, the show doesn’t really explore what happened and what Julie was like before she lost her family. Not really; we get glimpses in the first episode, but it’s not hard to see what kind of person she is: In particular, maybe a little spoiled, without much ambition beyond the moment she’s going through.

No, it will explore how Julie copes with not only grief but also suddenly being alone in her life. In the second episode, we saw her talk to a young person about it, but it didn’t really help when she tried to hang herself from the stage during a school production. Hamlet, what she calls the “most exhausting” story in literature. It’s not hard to see that Julie is paralyzed, and that all the toys the rich leave her won’t bring her family back.

Do we want to see some of Julie’s life before? Sure. It seemed like she was close to her parents, but she didn’t go on this trip with them. Is she as frivolous as it seems at first glance, or is it just a product of money twirling? All of which will help us get to know her better.

But we’re also intrigued by the back and forth between Julie trying to cope with this great loss and her version of herself trying to survive in the desert after she tries to kill herself. Will this travel help her purpose? It’s hard to say at this point. For all we know, her time in the desert won’t end well. But it’s certainly exciting to realize that she’s not dead yet, Julie seems to find a glimmer of hope in the endless sands.

Gender and Skin: There is some fully clothed sex in the second episode.

Farewell shot: We see both versions of Julie looking at the night sky; Desert Julie looks at a bright full moon while her voice talks about everything you can do in your final moments when the plane crashes. “You can think about your whole life. Or you can send a final text message. ”

Sleeper Star: Aleksandr Kuznetsov as Krysztof has a flaw that you don’t usually see in a character like him. He also seems to be the only person in Julie’s life that she can connect with after her family’s death.

Most Pilot-y routes: We haven’t mentioned Julie’s friends Constance (Carla Philip Røder), Micke (Casper Kjær Jensen) and Sofia (Vidhi Christine Kastebo Hansen) as they are not well identified in the first episode; they seem like good friends but rather shallow. We know she distanced herself from them after the death of her family, but we’d love to see their friendship with Julie explored a little more.

Our call: INSTRUCTIONS IT. Kamikaze tackles a subject that seems utterly depressing with a dash of humor and a hint of hope. Don’t get us wrong, it’s still pretty sad, but Reuther’s performance makes a boring subject interesting.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting, and technology, but he’s not kidding: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and others.

Current Kamikaze On HBO Max