Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Copenhagen Love Story’ on Netflix, a Smart, Relatable Drama About a Couple’s Struggle to Conceive

A happy couple tumbles into unhappy-coupleness while struggling to conceive a child in A Copenhagen Love Story, which was called Sult in its native Danish, but the direct translation is Hunger, and that’s just not a generic-enough title for Netflix. And as it goes for most Netflicks, we’re here to determine if filmmaking partners Ditte Hansen and Louise Mieritz’s rom-dram about a wannabe mom stirs enough interest to function as more than just wallpaper while you clean the house or organize your Precious Moments figurines, or whatever you choose to do while you half-watch something on TV, like Netflix seems to prefer. (When will I stop harping on this? When Netflix gives its movies reasonably memorable titles, thank you.) And as it turns out, this particular movie deserves more scrutinous attention thanks to its unvarnished look at a complicated woman making serious decisions about her life. 

A COPENHAGEN LOVE STORY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Mia (Rosalinde Mynster) is a successful author of edgy romances, quasi-confessional stories culled from her life as a free-spirited single woman. At the release party for her latest book, she does what she always does: lassos a younger fella and schtups him in the loo – then learns he’s still in high school. Oof. She shares the story with her bestie, Gro (Sara Fanta Traore), who suggests someone “odd and old” instead of young and dumb, specifically, her upstairs neighbor Emil (Joachim Fjelstrup). He’s an age-appropriate museum archaeologist and divorcee with two kids, and totally not Mia’s speed at all. But she consents to a stroll-through-the-park date that very well could’ve derailed when they bump into one of her younger exes who chastises her for not giving back his Prince album. But Emil hangs in there because she’s smart and funny and attractive and it all soon transitions to a rather horny montage of sexy sex-having followed by an incident in which she innocently eavesdrops on his interactions with his children, and is further charmed.

Now, it might be prudent to wonder how old, exactly, Emil and Mia are. We aren’t privy to specifics, but they’re definitely not “young,” and not quite to the stage where they’re side-eyeing a stray gray in the mirror. They’re definitely in the ish range, and that becomes prevalent during a moment where their postcoital bliss becomes a mutual declaration of their desire to generate human offspring together. The question as to exactly how long they’ve been together prompts one to do a little math without numbers: I’ve learned that people of a certain age tend to know themselves and what they want relatively well, and therefore don’t get hung up on is-it-too-soon-ness or other psycho-emotional tripwires. Intuition grows sharper with time and experience. And knowing what happens during the next hour or so of the movie, I hereby estimate that Emil is 39 and Mia is 36, because they might not make what appears to be a somewhat sudden decision to procreate without sensing the ticking of the ol’ biological clock, or any clock, for that matter. And they get right back to banging, albeit with a renewed sense of purpose.

Then we see a subtitle: NINE MONTHS LATER. And we hear a baby crying. This is a bait-and-switch – Mia looks out the window of Emil’s apartment as the wailing emanates from a passing baby stroller. She is not pregnant. Their efforts have been for naught but momentary satisfactory pleasure. Her attempts to write another book have been similarly unproductive, likely due to her transition out of the dating pool; she calls herself a “bonus mom” to Emil’s kids, and, at the behest of her editor, tries to use that as the basis of a comedy, but it’s just not working. She and Emil get to the injections-and-counting-sperm chapter of the conception struggle. Advice from her obligatory gay-couple friends doesn’t stick. She and Emil rut and rut and rut and she pees and pees and pees on pregnancy tests and they’re all negative. They argue a lot. Stress permeates her professional and personal lives. The happy-go-lucky but not necessarily psychologically healthy free spirit she was pre-Emil begins to re-emerge. How will they get through this? Very carefully, of course, assuming she’s willing to be careful. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: A Copenhagen Love Story blends elements of Sex and the City (if Carrie was trying to conceive), hit TV series This is Us and Tamara Jenkins’ overlooked infertility drama Private Life, with hints of Pamela Adlon’s sweet/funny Babes. 

Performance Worth Watching: It’s easy to admire Mynster’s performance, which is vulnerable and unselfconscious, and never preoccupied with whether Mia is always 100 percent lovable – and therefore a more relatable protagonist. Mynster’s willing to render the character a complex woman who makes mistakes and has a good heart, who wrestles with her ego and her ability to love herself. 

Memorable Dialogue: Emil is exasperated and worn out by their hyper-scheduled sex life: “Hedge our bets? That makes me horny. I love it when you talk dirty.”

Sex and Skin: Tops, bottoms, a little frontal and a couple of medium-plus-graphic sex scenes.

Our Take: A Copenhagen Love Story is essentially an actor’s movie, with enough heft and realism behind its depiction of thorny Women’s Issues to form a strong connection with adult audiences who’ve been through, or at least adjacent to, the situations it dramatizes, sometimes with boldly graphic imagery. Hansen and Mieretz’s screenplay, based on a novel by Tine Hoeg, leans into its relatability; if Emil and Mia can navigate their complicated personalities and situations amidst the grueling, sometimes humiliating gauntlet of fertility treatment, you can too. If they succeed, hooray. If they fail, well, you’re not alone in your pain. It’s a win-win.

The screenplay sometimes foregoes subtlety for pounding nails smack on their heads – characters often verbally reiterate emotions we’ve already gleaned from the performances, and there’s one bit of overcooked symbolism when Mia seems to be taking out her frustration by whisking the living shit out of her breakfast eggs. She also tends to come to profound personal realizations while smack in the middle of Big Moments, e.g., during a public author Q&A or a date with a younger man. But Mynster and Fjeldstrup’s acting is strong enough to transcend the script’s weaker points and work through the occasional bit of contrived melodrama; we never lose sight of who Emil and Mia are as people. We feel them, and root for them, all the way.

Our Call: Inspired performances make A Copenhagen Love Story a solid, relatable drama. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Copenhagen Love Story’ on Netflix, a Smart, Relatable Drama About a Couple’s Struggle to Conceive appeared first on Decider.