Arte is broadcasting from this Thursday evening “Cry Wolf”, an intimate drama about a 14-year-old girl who will accuse her stepfather of violence against her. An atypical social worker will then try to unravel the case.
Holly, a 14-year-old girl, denounces, in a school essay, the violence she suffers from her stepfather. She and her brother Theo are placed in a home by Lars, a social worker. The parents, Dea and Simon, deny all the charges. Who is telling the truth? Should we always believe what children say?
On ARTE on Thursdays January 19 and 26 at 8:55 p.m. The series is already available in full on Arte.tv, until March 26.
When a young girl accuses her stepfather of having abused her, but everyone denies the facts, even her little brother, should we believe her? These are the beginnings of this Danish mini-series created by Maja Jul Larsen, screenwriter on Les Héritiers and Borgen, which takes hold of a very current societal subject that is family violence.
Cry Wolf also plays on the ambiguity as to whether this abuse occurred as described by the young girl. Did Lars, the social worker, react too soon, or was he right to act so quickly, at the risk of destroying an already fragile family? Is the young Holly telling the truth, or is it just the fabrications of a teenager in lack of recognition?
With its refined staging, Cry Wolf is an intimate series based on 5 characters whose points of view on the case are explored, but also the moral dilemmas faced with these accusations. The casting is also impeccable with in particular the young Flora Ofelia Hofmann Lindahl, who is making her first steps on television here in the role of Holly.
Lars is played by Bjarne Henriksen (Borgen, Trapped, The Killing) while Holly’s two parents are played by Christine Albeck Børge (The Bridge) and Peter Plaugborg (The Shadow Killer).