This Netflix drama will trigger every viewer on a different level. If you’re white, living in an au pair culture, it peels back layers you don’t want to acknowledge, if you’re brown, Asian, also living in an au pair, nanny or maid culture, it is disturbing to see yourself or families you know, mirrored to uncomfortable reality, and if you’re a Filipino watching this, you might get angry, and stay angry, for a large part of the narrative right through till the end. Secrets We Keep is a look at au pair culture in Denmark for the comfortably wealthy, working families who need someone to stay home and look after the children as men and women pursue a full-fledged career, personal and social life.
But what’s the cost of having a live-in helper? And what are we not seeing about the way it transforms our lifestyle, family, upbringing and unfortunately, the way we view household help as entitled human beings who might think they live by a moral code, yet one that is possibly more skewed than we would like to admit.
Cecilie finds out her neighbour Katarina’s au pair Ruby is missing. But this is no ordinary mystery as a visibly distraught Ruby had asked Cecilie for help earlier, and everyone directly connected to Cecilie; from her husband Mike to her neighbour Kat and her husband and later, their son Oscar, seem suspicious.
But Secrets We Keep is not just a crime thriller or whodunnit. It is a watch that will make you squirm in your seat if you’re a mother, wonder if Ruby and Angel lead lives that might be a tad similar to the people you employ, and their treatment by their employers also seems a familiar story in households around you, or maybe, your own.
Add to this, a further complexity of young boys reaching puberty who are now used to having this helper tend to their every need, young boys who have access to inappropriate videos on their smart screen, ushered into secret group chats that urge quiet bullying and the unspoken code to remain silent about whatever is shared on those chats. Both Oscar and Viggo (Kat and Cecilie’s sons) share secrets. While Viggo, the younger of the two, might still appear innocent, he is vulnerable and exposed to a world he can’t quite understand but is peer-pressured by older students into being a part of it. Oscar on the other hand, has grown up to expect that Ruby and all au pairs are hired to please him and keep him happy – what more do you expect from a child who has a human being listening to his every command; from prepping dinner to clearing up, making his bed and also, tucking him in – strike an uncomfortable chord? Well, that’s what Secrets We Keep zones in on.
It’s all about privilege.
Where Secrets We Keep strikes a chord for brown parenting specifically, is the way in which Cecilie relies on Angel, her au pair to tend to her household while she carries on with a week that has a full calendar. She barely drops off to sleep at night, thankful that Angel is there to tend to the housework, cooking, cleaning, even helping with Viggo’s homework – a perfect world. What is doubly striking to the viewer is that Cecilie has a conscience. She is the good one between her neighbour Kat and herself. Yet, she cannot fully comprehend the finer nuances of their lives polished squeaky clean by the presence of live-in help who ensures that the house and children are taken care of, all the messy bits wrapped up, like clearing out the dinner table every evening and packing away the left overs. That’s how Viggo grew to be more comfortable with Angel than his mother, and asked her to give him a tight hug before he slept at night.
Although Secrets We Keep might be about Denmark’s au pair culture, one can draw fluid parallels to a life many people lead in developed and even developing countries. It’s about privilege wherever you enjoy it and the temptation to carry on your life as a married couple, both with power careers that are hard to pursue after having children. It sheds light on the fact that it is still the woman who will have to arrange for childcare and school runs, despite living in a dual income household. Cecilie was the one who was more involved in their children’s lives. The story might also reflect a lifestyle change in many South Asian countries as young couples with dual income and a lifestyle they are accustomed to, move out of a joint family, hence being hugely dependent on a maid culture.
Secrets We Keep might be set in Denmark, but it could easily mimic the lives of the rich and influential in an Asian country.
While Denmark’s au pair program requires that the applicant not be married and have no children, one wonders at the success or even transparency of such a program. It is after all, the married or parents who need help with finances and therefore willing to live away from their families to give their children a better future. It is after all, poverty that forces parents to take such a dire step, and by depriving parents of this opportunity, the system is opening itself up to being abused, as Angel who lied on the form and mentioned that she wasn’t a mother in order to gain employment in Denmark and then, send money home to a sister who tended to her children, not even sure if that hard-earned money will be spent to better the lives of her children.
Secrets We Keep asks countless questions; from the way our children regard household help, to how that help is vulnerable to abuse, to our double standards of being fair and just as a society and humans (as Cecilie tried to be by sending Angel home), possibly putting a halt to whatever income Angel was earning to educate, clothe and shelter her children back home in the Phillipines.
When Angel told Cecilie, “you have no idea where I come from”, the puzzled, guilty expression on Cecilie’s face, where she merely wanted to save her own family and conscience, was a starting point, not an end to the drama that left one with many afterthoughts.
It starts with our attitudes of being above those whom we consider less privileged – a different color, race or beliefs – and ends up in the way we pursue justice for them, as was evident from the frustration felt by Aicha, the police officer following the case. Was it a coincidence that she was black, and the only one invested in finding Ruby and punishing her culprits?
There was more to Secrets We Keep with male entitlement and glimpses of misogyny; it was in Mike’s story, how Cecilie accepted him with a problematic past, despite being a fairly entitled, independent woman. It was in the way he treated her during intercourse, and also, the way he interacted with Kat’s husband, the ‘boys will be boys’ banter. It was also in the way Cecilie’s neighbour Kat was treated by her husband and how she would turn her entire world upside down to protect the men she lived with. It was in the way she protected Oscar, and the way an all white narrative protected Oscar who, like Mike, would probably go to a juvenile rehab and lead a free and privileged life, just like the rest of them.
Secrets We Keep Could Just As Well Mirror The Lives of Privilege in South Asian Families Where Maid Culture Is a Given
Secrets We Keep is an uncomfortable watch yet a glaring wake-up call, a look in the mirror at what lifestyles might look like if we choose to lead (un)messy lives. Because, underneath that comfort, glamour, luxury and perfection, there is a great deal of messiness we try to deny. In doing so, these secrets stay with us, as they will with Cecilie now, who could have been one of us and who, despite having integrity and pursuing the truth behind Ruby’s disappearance, will now likely stay quiet, keeping a secret that will protect the world and keep it exactly as she knows it now.
Credits
Directed by Per Fly, the series is created and written by Ingeborg Topsøe, with additional writing by Ina Bruhn and Mads Tafdrup. The production team includes Marie-Louise Gyldenkrone as line producer, Stinna Lassen as executive producer, and Claudia Saginario as producer.
The cast includes Marie Bach Hansen, Excel Busano, Danica Curcic, Sara Fanta Traore, Simon Sears, Lars Ranthe, Lukas Zuperka, Frode Bilde Rønsholt, Donna Levkovski, Gel Andersen, Henrik Prip, Nilda Galola Aclon, Jesper Hagelskær Paasch, Isabelita Reyes, Asta Tvilling Jensen, Lizzielou Corfixen, Mette Gregersen, Klaus Søndergaard, Esther Joy Gonzalvo Gutierrez, Claudio Morales, Eigil Hedegaard, Frederik Mansø, Ane Stensgaard-Juul, Ina-Miriam Rosenbaum, Clara Mølsted-Ylönen, Thomas Diepeveen, August Thomas Juel Brandt, Sylvester Engelhardt, Mea-Ann Amante, and Katja Kvistgaard.
