Thomas Vinterberg’s climate dystopia mini series “Families Like Ours” (Original title: Familier som vores, 2025) shuttles between occasionally engaging and a drag, unmoving mass produced over seven long episodes. It’s about individuals and families struggling to keep their relationships afloat amidst unfathomable crises, battered by vicissitudes imposed by the environment and geopolitical delineations. The series tackles big, weighty themes, resulting in something that’s intermittently drab and emotionally compelling.
There’s a track that’s too protracted and several other narrative decisions that aren’t satisfying, rather curiously muddled. It’s a show that wants to take us on a journey with its characters through an intensive trajectory, revealing their fears and anguish. Characters cost an eternity of thought and consideration. Vinterberg orchestrates without weaving sufficient fascination for characters and their dilemmas. There’s a lot of uncertainty, yet it’s a very turgid drama.
Families Like Ours (Familier som vores, TV Mini Series 2025) Episode 1 Recap:
The series opens with a massive crisis kicking in. Denmark is plunged into a flooding crisis. There are rising water levels, and Denmark is low-lying. It hasn’t crept in yet, but the government has already ordered an evacuation. Nikolaj, who works at the government office, rats out news of the evacuation, that Denmark will soon be declared an unlivable country, to his partner, Henrik, and Jacob, his brother-in-law. He breaches the code of secrecy.
The country is closing down. Nik urges Jacob to sell off his house at the earliest. The economic collapse of the Netherlands has further expedited the evacuation. Laura, Jacob’s daughter, is horrified upon learning of her house’s sale. At the end of the episode, Jacob informs her of the impending evacuation, which is disclosed to the general public a day later. Why was there no open date?
Families Like Ours (Familier som vores, TV Mini Series 2025) Episode 2 Recap:
The episode opens with a startling discovery. The sale of Jacob’s house has been annulled. In fact, the buyer has backed off in the aftermath of the evacuation news, accusing Jacob of insider knowledge and deceit. Jacob, an architect, reaches out to a Parisian contact who can help him land a job at his firm and also enable a residency permit for Jacob, his wife Amalie, and their child. Laura is also expected to join them. She applies to the Sorbonne, even gets in, and has her student residency permit issued. But she’s in two minds because of her mother, Fanny, who has been unwell and jobless for a long time. The only option left to her mother is residency in Bucharest, which is ensured by the Danish government.
Families Like Ours (Familier som vores, TV Mini Series 2025) Episode 3 Recap:
Henrik’s brother, Peter, accuses him of hiding family holdings from him. There are threats of violence meted out by his goons. Henrik always wanted to help Peter, but the latter was never a generous, kind brother, but rather a strident homophobe. Laura wants to accompany her mother to Romania, overlooking even her boyfriend Elias, who applies to a Parisian place for his studies and gets in only because it was Laura who pushed him.
Families Like Ours (Familier som vores, TV Mini Series 2025) Episode 4 Recap:
It’s only at this point onwards that the show finds its beat, a certain energy that was previously shown only in flickers. It’s Amalie who secretly helps Laura with the Romanian residency and books a ticket. Laura kept up the front that she was going with Jacob and Amalie to Paris, only to announce at the eleventh hour about her plan of joining her mother. Jacob tries to reason with her, halt her, but she is determined.
However, she gets stuck in traffic and is late. She misses the ship where her mother is, and she is supposed to board as well. Desperate, she gets on a private boat. Her ill-advised decisions intensify alarmingly as the series progresses. At some point, right before skirting the Polish coast, the boat’s crew takes the passengers’ phones and drops them in the sea. Meanwhile, Jacob discovers from Fanny, who has reached Poland, that Laura isn’t with her.
Families Like Ours (Familier som vores, TV Mini Series 2025) Episode 5 Recap:
Henrik is guilt-stricken after accidentally killing an acquaintance’s son, whom he’d assumed was a threat. His mind was preoccupied with the menace exerted by his vengeful brother. Throughout the latter few episodes, we witness the chafing between Henrik and an extraordinarily patient Nik, who insists on slow healing. Henrik wants to turn himself in to the cops. Nik pleads with him not to do any such thing.
Laura spends a bulk of her track walking exhaustedly, turned away from overpacked boats. Somehow, she lands in Russia and contacts Elias, who is prompt enough to declare he’ll set out for her and meet her. Moreover, an anxious Jacob, who feared his daughter’s missing status, had contacted the cops. This leads to ramifications. Jacob’s family loses the Paris apartment, and they move into an estate on the kindness of Amalie’s past connection. She works as a cleaner and then a hotel receptionist in France.
Families Like Ours (Familier som vores, TV Mini Series 2025) Episode 6 Recap:
Elias is stumbling through the Polish outskirts when he gets food at a kind stranger’s place. However, officers are alerted in the region. They catch hold of him as he’s about to flee from their grasp. He is knocked down on the ground. However, in happier contrast, Laura reunites with her mother at last. She starts working odd jobs. Laura and Fanny slowly find their bearings in Bucharest, as their lives grow more stable and Fanny slides back into her past job as a journalist.
Families Like Ours (Familier som vores, TV Mini Series 2025) Episode 7 Recap & Series Ending Explained:
Is Laura reunited with Elias?
Henrik and Nik come back to each other, their love stronger than ever. Henrik’s demons are exorcised, Peter having become more understanding of him and his gay identity. Finally, Laura discovers what’s happened to Elias after many, many months. His mother had informed her that only Elias’ belongings were found. Laura kept the faith. Elias calls her out of the blue one day. She is startled but glad. Elias reveals he had been assaulted and was comatose. He’s now barely able to do things on his own. He’s slowly recuperating.
In the closing section, Laura informs her mother that she will go to Finland for her friend’s wedding. She arrives, embraced by her ecstatic friend. Elias also comes. His arrival is what she’s been eagerly awaiting. He looks shy and aloof, unwilling to engage with her. He’s a wheelchair user. However, the ending shows promise as she gets him to loosen up and break down his reserve. He need not fear her judgement. She’ll be there for him.
