A Thriller That Promised More Than Just Crime
When Netflix first dropped the trailer for Loving Adults, it caught immediate attention. The setup felt familiar — love, betrayal, and murder — but there was a quiet menace in its atmosphere that made people sit up. Fans of Scandinavian noir whispered that this was Denmark’s answer to Gone Girl, while online forums buzzed with theories about where the story might go. The trailer’s flashes of passion, jealousy, and blood left viewers both curious and unsettled.
Behind the hype was director Barbara Topsøe-Rothenborg, a filmmaker mostly known for romantic dramas. Her pivot to a dark psychological thriller surprised many, creating a storm of expectations even before the film premiered.
What the Story Really Told Us
At the heart of Loving Adults is the seemingly perfect couple: Christian (Dar Salim) and Leonora (Sonja Richter). They appear to have everything — a stable home, financial security, and a teenage son. But beneath the surface lies a relationship poisoned by long-simmering resentment. Leonora has sacrificed her ambitions to care for their son, who has a disability, while Christian has grown distant, entangled in an affair with his younger colleague Xenia (Sus Wilkins).
When Leonora discovers the affair, the story shifts gears from marital drama to psychological warfare. She refuses to let Christian leave her, threatening to destroy him if he dares to pursue Xenia. What follows is a chain of lies, manipulations, and acts of violence where love is twisted into control, and passion becomes weaponized.
The brilliance of the narrative lies not just in the crime but in how it forces the viewer to ask: is Leonora truly a victim betrayed by her husband, or is she the true architect of destruction? In Scandinavian style, the morality is murky, and everyone is guilty in their own way.
Love as a Cage: Themes That Hide Beneath the Plot
At first glance, Loving Adults looks like a thriller about adultery and revenge. But dig deeper, and it becomes a study of power, dependency, and identity within marriage.
Leonora’s sacrifices for her son symbolize the erasure of self that many women undergo in relationships. Her rage at Christian isn’t just about infidelity — it’s about decades of giving up her dreams, only to be discarded. Christian’s desire for Xenia, meanwhile, isn’t just lust but a yearning for freedom from the weight of his responsibilities.
Even the title — Loving Adults — is a paradox. Adults are supposed to love responsibly, with patience and compromise. Yet here, love becomes childish, selfish, and destructive. The film asks whether “loving” in adulthood is ever pure, or if it’s always tainted by fear of loss and the hunger for control.
Sonja Richter and the Many Faces of Leonora
Sonja Richter, one of Denmark’s most celebrated actresses, brought a haunting intensity to Leonora. Known internationally for The Keeper of Lost Causes and Open Hearts, she has often played women navigating trauma and resilience.
Her own career has been a mix of mainstream Danish projects and daring arthouse films, and that duality fed perfectly into Leonora’s character — a woman both relatable and terrifying. In interviews, Richter admitted that Leonora’s descent into obsession scared her, yet she found it liberating to play a woman who refuses to stay passive. Fans online debated whether Richter’s performance made Leonora sympathetic or monstrous, a sign that she had struck the perfect ambiguous chord.
Dar Salim’s Christian: Between Duty and Desire
Dar Salim, who portrayed Christian, is one of Denmark’s most versatile actors, with Iraqi roots and a background that includes military service before acting. His life story of constantly reinventing himself gave him unique insight into Christian’s turmoil — a man torn between his obligations as a husband and father, and his longing for a different life.
Salim himself once mentioned that he understood Christian’s fear of being trapped, though he didn’t condone his choices. That subtle understanding gave his performance layers beyond a cheating husband stereotype. His Christian was weak, yes, but also deeply human.
Xenia as the Symbol of Escapism
Sus Wilkins, playing Xenia, embodied more than just the “other woman.” In the story, Xenia is youth, ambition, and freedom — everything Leonora feels she has lost. Wilkins, in real life, is a dancer-turned-actress, someone who has spoken about breaking out of labels and expectations. That personal journey aligned perfectly with her character’s role as a catalyst for change, tempting Christian into a future that seems liberating but comes at a devastating cost.
Cinematic Choices That Heightened the Unease
Topsøe-Rothenborg’s direction leaned heavily on contrasts. The bright, airy Danish homes and idyllic countryside clashed with the darkness of the characters’ inner lives. The cinematography often framed Leonora and Christian in tight, suffocating spaces, suggesting how trapped they both were.
One particularly striking choice was the use of silence. Long pauses, broken only by the clink of glasses or the faint hum of traffic, amplified the tension more than any jump-scare could. The pacing, deliberately slow in the first half, mirrored the suffocating buildup of secrets, before exploding into violence in the second half.
The Buzz, the Reactions, the Aftertaste
When Loving Adults dropped on Netflix, fans rushed in expecting a thriller with neat answers. What they got was murkier. Social media erupted with divided takes: some praised it as a masterpiece of psychological tension, while others found it frustratingly ambiguous. The final act, especially the ending, left many debating whether justice had been served or whether love itself was the real villain.
The film’s ambiguity became part of its hype. Twitter threads dissected Leonora’s every look, Reddit boards speculated on alternate endings, and Danish outlets praised the film for exporting Nordic noir’s unsettling morality to global audiences.
Stories From Behind the Screen
What most people don’t know is that Loving Adults was adapted from a novel by Anna Ekberg, but Barbara Topsøe-Rothenborg made significant changes. The book leaned heavier on crime elements, but the director pushed for psychological nuance, arguing that the story wasn’t about the act of murder but about why people cling so desperately to toxic love.
There were also casting shifts during production. Early rumors suggested a younger actress might play Leonora to emphasize the age gap with Christian’s mistress, but Richter’s casting changed the balance, making it less about age and more about sacrifice.
Another hidden detail: filming was done largely on location in real Danish homes rather than studio sets. This choice gave the film a lived-in authenticity, though it created challenges for lighting and camera setups. Crew members recalled the difficulty of fitting large equipment into cramped suburban kitchens, mirroring the suffocating dynamics the film portrayed.
When Love Turns Into a Battlefield
In the end, Loving Adults was more than a Netflix thriller — it was a mirror held up to relationships that look perfect from the outside but rot from within. It showed us that love, when entangled with resentment and fear, can become the most dangerous weapon of all. And perhaps that’s why the film lingered long after the credits — not because of its crimes, but because of how uncomfortably familiar its truths felt.
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