Binge-worthy: Dear Child a suspenseful German psychological thriller
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Naila Schuberth plays strange young girl Hannah who was born in captivity in Dear Child.
PHOTO: NETFLIX
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Dear Child
Netflix
3 out of 5 stars
The top non-English-language show on Netflix in mid-September, Dear Child opens with a woman and a 12-year-old girl escaping after being held captive for many years, and the puzzle of who they are slowly unspools from there.
Here are a few reasons to stream this suspenseful German psychological thriller.
1. A mystifying missing persons case
In a windowless room monitored by security cameras, a woman, Lena (Kim Riedle), plays with children Hannah (Naila Schuberth) and Jonathan (Sammy Schrein).
The kids’ father, whose face viewers do not see, keeps them locked up, and they must obey an oppressive system of rules or be punished.
Lena manages to escape, but is hit by a car while on the run. When she and Hannah are taken to hospital, the authorities realise she may be the same Lena who vanished without a trace 13 years ago.
But Lena’s grief-stricken parents do not recognise her – one of many elements of this case that do not add up.
2. An unnerving child
Naila Schuberth plays a strange young girl Hannah in Dear Child.
PHOTO: NETFLIX
In a move borrowed from the horror genre, much of the story revolves around a strange young child – the eerily self-possessed 12-year-old Hannah.
Born in captivity, she has a warped view of the world and her all-powerful father, whom she loves dearly.
Lena is less fond of the man but she, too, is under his spell. She and Hannah prove to be unreliable narrators as a result – especially when talking to Detective Buhling (Hans Low), who has been haunted by this case for more than a decade.
3. Slow-simmering mystery
Dear Child could easily have been a cliched crime procedural if not for Lena’s all-too-palpable terror and the Stockholm syndrome she and the children have.
The identity of the man responsible is hidden till the end, but in the meantime, the audience is kept busy viewing everyone with suspicion – including Detective Buhling and Lena’s distraught father Matthias (Justus von Dohnanyi).
The show gilds the lily with a few details, such as Hannah’s random and robotic spouting of factoids.
But it keeps a sense of menace and suspense simmering beautifully over the six episodes, and the ending is satisfying.
