🇸🇪 THREESOME 🇸🇪
(by Gina Meardon)
Threesome (2021-) is a Swedish drama series on Channel 4 UK with 8 x 25 min episodes (approx) in English and Swedish (with subtitles).
Premise:
The young Swedish couple David and Siri who have been together since high school have the [a] love that is self-evident and strong, until they meet French art student Camille on a rainy night out. (IMDb)
Cast:
Matilda Källström as Siri
Simon Lööf as David
Lucien Laviscount as John
Kitt Walker as Mario
Alma Jodorowsky as Camille
Emily Renée as Miriam
Cat White as Josephine
Joanna Le Pluart as Martha
Kola Krauze [one of our “Familj”] as Mark
Jeffrey Miguel as Aaron
Edwin Safari as Paul
Jonaten Liedholm as Benjamin
Theresa Frostad Eggesbø as Zoe
Crew:
Writers: Martin Bengtsson, Lisa Linnertorp, Elisabeth Marjanovic Cronvall
Director: Lisa Linnertorp
Cinematographers: Erik Vallsten, Calle Persson
Composers: Erik Althoff, Jonatan Järpehag
Editor: Oskar Blondell
Casting: Marta Dauliute, David Färdmar
Notes:
Lisa Linnertorp has made her writing and directorial debut with this series; she is an actress known for Stockholm Requiem, The Bridge and The Restaurant.
Martin Bengtsson is a scriptwriter on Hamilton and co-wrote the film Tigers.
Erik Vallsten was Director of Photography for The Most Beautiful Boy in the World.
Calle Persson is the Cinematographer for Hamilton and also for Maria Wern, Rig 45, Hassel and Farang.
Matilda Källström was nominated for the 2021 Zalando Rising Star Award for her role as Siri.
Threesome is set in London, however, filming took place entirely in Malmö, Sweden.
Review:
Before I begin this review it should be said that the sex and nudity content of this series is severe and is obvious from the very opening scenes, and it continues throughout the eight episodes. There is also a high degree of sexually explicit language and references throughout the episodes. You have been duly warned.
Siri and David are 24 years old, they have been together since they were 17, and are still very much in love, at least they think they are. Originally from Sweden, they are now living in London while Siri completes her legal studies, David, the wage-earner, is working in telemarketing and they are renting a flat with “issues” — a cracked ceiling above the bed… if ever there was a more obvious metaphor!
They are a “fun” couple and they have a lot of friends who like to party, a lot. Partying by definition is drinking, smoking weed and snorting cocaine, which is all acceptable within the trendy young circle they inhabit.
On the surface, they make a dream couple, young and both beautiful. David is besotted with Siri and always attentive, Siri is the centre of his world and the story centres around her. Everything appears perfect in their lives until the night they get wasted in a bar, meet the French art student Camille and get invited back to her flat…
What happens next — obvious from the series title, is one fleeting night, but the repercussions and fall-out cloud and haunt their relationship. The cracks begin to show, and this was where I began to struggle, because all of Siri’s future actions are based on her interpretation of the night, that it was David’s fault because he had sex with Camille. She uses that premise, whether consciously or subconsciously, to justify (to herself) the course she takes, projecting her guilt on him because the protagonist of the threesome was actually Siri herself — David wanted to go home from the start.
She begins to withdraw from him emotionally and sexually, and David starts to notice the changes. I found it hard to like Siri, REALLY hard. She sees things through one perspective, her own, and though consumed with jealousy that she watched her boyfriend with Camille (and woke up to find him asleep wrapped around Camille and not her) she sets out in a moment of impulse, to pursue an ex-boyfriend of one of her closest friends.
The episodes of Threesome are short, under half an hour each, so it is easy to binge through this in a night or two. Siri’s choices are NOT endearing, especially with her pursuit of John, her friend’s ex-boyfriend. His attitude I cannot understand either, because he is presented as a “genuine and caring guy”, but one who completely accepts Siri’s position as a girl already in a long-term relationship and hurting the boyfriend she tells him she still loves. He does not allow that to bother him, and yet he broke up with Siri’s friend because “she had a complicated family”!
Some scenes I found downright painful, Siri raging at a clearly upset David for unknowingly holding Camille as he slept, him trying to defend his actions by rightly saying he was asleep so had no clue what he was doing! At this point, she was already cheating on him. Her anger that he had gone to Sweden for his brother’s birthday party and she called him late at night to provoke an argument between them, just because she was feeling sorry for herself. There is also the night of their seventh anniversary, when David takes Siri (at her request) to an extremely expensive hotel for an overnight stay with champagne and room service, if you didn’t like Siri before that night, you are likely to hate her by the end.
If the writers intended to create sympathy and compassion for David, then they have very much succeeded and the end of episode 8 sets the scene for a very interesting season 2 — which has just been given the green light. However, if they wanted to portray Siri as a confused young woman, finding who she is in the big wide world, well I could say she deserves everything coming to her. That may sound harsh, but why oh why, when you have had no contact with the third party of that threesome that caused you both so much pain, would you then decide to attend a party they are throwing? Why would you persuade your boyfriend who really does not want go that, “You have to face your fears” so you don’t lose face? It makes no sense because, except for a fleeting moment on a busy tube train, when Camille invites her and David to the party, Siri and Camille have not seen each other since that fateful night.
Siri is at best completely thoughtless and self-centred. I find it hard to understand how a seemingly bright, intelligent law student cannot identify that her erratic behaviour is at its worst when fuelled by alcoholic binges, which regularly occur with her friends, and how she appears unable to rectify that behaviour.
Did I enjoy the series? “Enjoy” is not a word I would use. It was well-acted but the use of a hand-held camera (used to, I think, show how confused Siri was) became quickly annoying because it was so jumpy. I do not think I am the only one who has been shouting at the TV in exasperation with her behaviour and wanting to reach in and hug poor David and pack him back off to Sweden and leave her to it.
However, I will probably watch Season 2 when it lands, if only to see how David reacts to Siri’s betrayal, and I hope “he grows a pair”; he deserves so much better. The same can be said of John, whose character I just did not understand settling for being “the other man”. For it to work I would like to see these two men make their own way and not allow themselves to be dangled on the end of Siri’s very twisted and knotted string. What will make her mature and become more likeable? Probably to look into the mirror and realise that she is not in love with either man and needs to make her own way in the world and cut them free. Time will tell.
Despite my absolute dislike of Siri as a character I have to say that Matilda Källstrom in her first lead role was excellent, as was Simon Lööf. Both young actors have promising futures as Matilda’s Zalando Rising Star nomination testifies.
Threesome Viaplay Official Trailer, English /Swedish Language and Subtitles:
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