The Norwegian dramedy “Pernille” (in Norwegian, with subtitles, or dubbed), on Netflix, is about as lovely as shows get, endearing but mercifully resistant to treacle.
Henriette Steenstrup created and stars in the show as Pernille, a single mom to two of the most ungrateful — realistic — teens on TV. She is reeling from her sister’s death six months earlier, and she still leaves her sister voice mails, sometimes chatty and sometimes wrenching.
Pernille’s older daughter, Hanna (Vivild Falk Berg), is histrionic and capricious and suddenly dragging her feet about a long-planned gap year in Argentina. The younger, Sigrid (Ebba Jacobsen Oberg), is a ball of rage, surly beyond measure but still young enough to be read to at night and get tucked in sometimes. Pernille’s nephew, Leo (Jon Ranes), is also living with them while his father recovers from the accident that killed his mother. The show kicks off with Pernille’s widower dad (Nils Ole Oftebro) announcing that he is gay and ready to live his truth.
The show is, in all the good ways, a lot like Pamela Adlon’s FX dramedy “Better Things,” which was also about a single mom, her aging parent and her indulged, difficult daughters. The heroines share a life-animating sense of duty, as well as a prickly, spirited humor and brilliance. They both have drip exes whose intermittent fathering is a grave disappointment, and they both have robust social support and sexually encouraging friends.
The biggest difference between the shows is that Adlon’s character, Sam, is situated as uniquely, dazzlingly bohemian, a fount of outsider art, sumptuous recipes, dark eyeliner and arty pals. Pernille is more squarely ordinary. She sings in a community choir and spends a lot of time texting, and she gets star-struck just meeting a guy who works on Nick Cave’s tour. This isn’t to say Pernille isn’t special. She is, of course, once you know her, which is exactly what the show accomplishes.
We learn a lot about Pernille, her gentle romances and gutting conflict with her ex-husband, whose self-aggrandizing memoir is called “Father Fell.” Pernille enjoys being in control, so much so that her happy place is the driver’s seat in her car. She slinks off to the garage to sit there, and it’s where she hangs out with friends, has late-night chats with her dad and hosts the occasional suitor.
Pernille works in child welfare, and some of the show’s most affecting scenes are with her young clients, victims of abuse and neglect. One child’s extended family denies that there could be abuse because of how well-behaved the little girl is. No, says Pernille. “Well-adjusted children are angry, disgusting, gross and don’t do what they are told.” She’s grateful her children are “disgusting,” she jokes to a colleague later.
The show has five six-episode seasons, with Seasons 1-3 covering only a few months and Seasons 4 and 5 picking up two years later. It stays consistent the whole way through, steadfastly messy and openhearted, aware of the many ways love and pain coexist.
Margaret Lyons is a television critic at The Times, and writes the TV parts of the Watching newsletter.
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