Stenbeck

The series is shockingly bad. Both the script, direction, and acting performances are embarrassingly clumsy. Even Jakob Oftebro delivers a very weak portray as Jan Stenbeck despite his brilliant credentials. He mostly smirks all the time and does not in any way fill the role of Stenbeck. The series omits many important events in Stenbeck's private and business life, but spends an unreasonable amount of time on his relationship with his wife Merrill - a relationship where Stenbeck is portrayed as a devoted husband and father, but who spends too much time at work in Sweden. In reality, the relationship was quite different, with several extramarital affairs on Stenbeck's part, while it was he who filed for divorce. For budget reasons, it seems British Zoe Boyle got the role of "Merrill," which explains her struggle with American-English accent. Examining the supporting roles a bit closer, one quickly realizes that most of them come directly from an evening course in so-called performing arts. Particularly awful were "Oskar" and "Marcus," whose performances most closely resembled school theater. The sisters "Margaretha" and "Elisabeth" also did very poorly. Other irritations were all the scenes shown but neither explained nor relevant to the plot. On top of everything, the director apparently thought someone should light a cigarette in every effing scene. We know they smoked a lot then! And as a recurring theme, drama, tension, and engagement are completely absent. Instead, "Stenbeck" feels like one long, sleep-inducing episode of Varuhuset* from 1987.

*) Varuhuset (The department store) is a Swedish low-budget, low-quality soap opera, aired in 1987-89.