Dear Child Review: Also known as Liebes Kind, this drama-mystery-crime TV mini-series, based on Romy Hausman’s novel of the same title, is directed by Julian Pörksen and Isabel Kleefeld, produced by Friederich Oetker and Tom Spiess, and stars Kim Riedle, Sammy Schrein, Naila Schuberth, Justus von Dohnányi, Julika Jenkins, Haley Louise Jones and others. The series has 6 episodes, each with a runtime of around 45 minutes.
Dear Child Plot
Lena, Hannah and Jonathan’s life is spent in confinement and isolation – they eat, sleep and go to the toilet at prescribed times, and the moment “he” enters the room, they must line up and show their hands. However, one day, they manage to escape their captivity, and after a horrible car crash, they end up in a hospital.
However, the real story starts there as Lena’s parents arrive to see their child after 13 years, thankful that she is alive. From there starts a dark and horrifying look into a shocking secret of an unsolved disappearance from years ago.
– Dear Child Review Does Not Contain Spoilers –
Dear Child Review
Dear Child starts off on a grim note – and never really gives up on that note. We have seen this story many times over, a story of abduction and the horrors of confinement and the bond that a mother and her children share in such scenarios.
However, this movie isn’t that kind of a movie. It wouldn’t be half as interesting as Dear Child is if it were. There are parallels to Brie Larson’s Room, a brilliant movie that is both devastatingly emotional and extremely thrilling and tragic. However, as mentioned previously, this isn’t that movie. The 6-episode mini-series is also equally devastating and very thrilling, but it’s a story of a different kind. Although it explores the consequences of how vile human beings can be, it digs deeper than that. It looks at people’s psychologies and gives us several twists and turns that some of you might just be able to figure out from early on.
The characters are what will intrigue you the most here because everyone just seems to be an enigma, suffering from their own forms of torture, thanks to the horrifying decisions of a few. More than anything, these characters will make you emotional for their well-being as they come to various realisations. What’s the most interesting part of this is that everyone’s reactions are so different, and each and every one of them is absolutely different from each other.
The survivors of the nightmare, especially Jasmine and Hannah, will leave you with many questions, while the others simply make you feel heartbroken. Hannah puts forth the most questions, as you wonder who she is and how she is so smart. Of course, there are twists here as well, but that’s something you will have to watch and figure out.
The storyline is tight and relatively fast-paced, and it has enough twists and turns to keep you invested throughout the runtime. It’s a bleak story that is both heart-wrenching and interesting, and the confusing twists leave you shocked. There’s always something that will make your heart beat faster and make you question society. The tight tension is palpable in every scene of the series because it doesn’t go where you’d think it will, and soon the series takes you down a path that will leave you further uncomfortable.
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It’s not just because there are twists – Dear Child completely blindsides you about where it is going towards the latter half of its runtime and distinguishes it from its predecessors. The way the story plays out is just so incredibly uncomfortable and creepy and paced so well that you get time to get in new information, but you don’t sit with it for too long. The initial discovery is nothing close to what is waiting in the following episodes and just ends up being the entrance to a much more confusing web of madness.
Dear Child has some excellent acting, especially from Naila Schuberth, who is excellent as the confusing Hannah. Kim Riedle, brainwashed and abused, is also excellent, and you sympathise with the two of them and their (confusing to us) behaviours thoroughly. Meanwhile, Hans Löw as a disturbed police officer desperate to close a case close to him, is also really good in his role and sells it impressively. The same goes for everyone else on the cast.
Dear Child Review: Final Thoughts
Dear Child is a thrilling and twisted watch from start to end. It goes from bad to worse and just takes you in an uncomfortable loop of deceit, heartbreak and horror that is nothing short of a nightmare. The series puts the fear of the outside on you, and you will be left to check your surroundings afterwards.
Dear Child is streaming on Netflix.
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Right its okies, with heavy lot of questions and dective work, talking and vback flashing in too the past , im at episode 3, nobody looks like their gonna leaves the hospitol soon, i hate hospitol stuff, wired up, needless and dna test ugh i was eating at some point,
I hope their gonna catch the bastard that kept them hostage, hopefully before or in eps 5, or il be pissed off, or atleast putt a bullet trought his skull,
If he the criminal had lived in the forest i knew where I HAD BURNED WHOLE THE F…KING FOREST WITH HIM BURNED TOO A UNKNOWN CHRISP, WATCHING HIM BURN ALIVE,
MY SCORE: 2.0 OF 5 so far, episode 2 the end was good, keep up with that.