Why Netflix’s Secrets We Keep Is Being Compared With Adolescence
A missing au pair sets off a chain of suspicion in one of Denmark’s wealthiest neighborhoods in Netflix’s new Danish thriller Secrets We Keep. But the six-part series is attracting attention for more than its mystery. Viewers have also drawn comparisons with Adolescence, the British Netflix hit that sparked widespread discussion about toxic masculinity, misogyny and online culture.
Known as Reservatet in Danish, Secrets We Keep premiered on May 15, 2025. The series centers on two affluent families whose seemingly comfortable lives begin to unravel after Ruby, a young Filipina au pair, disappears.
Netflix describes the drama as a story about what happens when a wealthy family’s carefully maintained world is disrupted by a missing-person case. The investigation gradually exposes the power structures, privileges and tensions hidden inside the neighborhood’s polished homes.
What is Secrets We Keep about?
At the heart of the story is Cecilie, played by Marie Bach Hansen, a successful executive living with her family in an affluent area north of Copenhagen.
When her neighbor’s young au pair, Ruby, played by Donna Levkovski, suddenly disappears, Cecilie becomes increasingly troubled by the reaction of Ruby’s employers. The family does not appear particularly concerned about the disappearance, prompting Cecilie to question what may have happened.
Her curiosity soon turns into a personal investigation. As she searches for answers, the case begins to lead much closer to her own home and family.
Cecilie and her husband Mike, played by Simon Sears, also employ a Filipina au pair named Angel, played by Excel Busano. Angel looks after their toddler and is friendly with Ruby, making Ruby’s disappearance particularly unsettling for her.
At first, Cecilie and Mike appear to care deeply about Angel, and Angel seems comfortable with the family. But Cecilie becomes increasingly uneasy when she notices how attached her pre-teen son Viggo, played by Lukas Zuperka, has become to Angel.
That relationship becomes one of several details that force Cecilie to look more closely at the dynamics inside her own household.
The series also introduces police officer Aicha, played by Sara Fanta Traore, who investigates Ruby’s disappearance. According to Netflix, the case is initially treated as a low priority, while Aicha works to uncover what happened.
Why are viewers comparing it with Adolescence?
The comparison comes less from the two shows having the same story and more from the social issues they explore beneath their respective mysteries.
Netflix’s Adolescence follows a 13-year-old boy accused of murdering a female classmate. The series became a major international success and drew considerable attention to toxic masculinity, misogyny and the influence of online culture on young people.
Secrets We Keep takes a different route. It is built as a mystery thriller surrounding a missing young woman, but the investigation opens up questions about class, race, gender and the ways young people are influenced by the adults and cultures around them.
Viggo is particularly important to that side of the story. His relationship with Angel and his interactions with his peers bring questions about misogyny and online behavior into the drama.
The series also examines the social divide between the wealthy Danish families and the foreign workers employed inside their homes. That tension is central to the disappearance of Ruby and to Cecilie’s growing realization that the world around her may be very different from the one she assumed she knew.
The comparison with Adolescence, then, comes from the way both dramas use a crime story to examine wider social issues rather than treating the central mystery as an isolated event.
Denmark’s au pair system is central to the story
One of the most distinctive elements of Secrets We Keep is its focus on Denmark’s au pair culture.
The country’s au pair system is intended to function as a form of cultural exchange. Foreign nationals can live with a Danish family for up to two years, learn about Danish culture and language, and contribute to household responsibilities. In return, they receive monthly pocket money as well as accommodation and meals.
Filipinos make up a large majority of au pairs in Denmark.
The arrangement has also raised questions about the position of au pairs within Danish society. Although their responsibilities can resemble those of domestic workers, they are not officially classified as labor migrants and therefore do not receive the same protections under labor laws.
That complicated relationship between family, employment and dependency is one of the issues the series places under the microscope.
The au pairs are welcomed into the homes they work in and can become deeply involved in family life. At the same time, there is a clear imbalance of power between them and the wealthy families who employ them.
That contradiction is central to the world of Secrets We Keep.
Is Secrets We Keep based on a true story?
No. The series is fictional.
Creator and co-writer Ingeborg Topsøe has said that she was particularly interested in the power structures that exist inside families and homes.
Denmark is often viewed as an egalitarian society, but Topsøe wanted to explore a side of Danish life that she felt was rarely portrayed on television: affluent households where au pairs become deeply involved in family life while simultaneously working for the people they live with.
Her interest lies in the contradiction at the center of that arrangement. Families may regard their au pairs as being “part of the family,” while the relationship remains an employment arrangement. Parents may have good intentions, yet their professional and personal lives can leave them absent from their children’s everyday lives.
Those tensions provide the foundation for the series and help explain why Ruby’s disappearance has consequences far beyond a conventional missing-person investigation.
A Danish thriller with wider social questions
Secrets We Keep uses the disappearance of a young Filipina au pair to look behind the carefully maintained image of privilege and comfort in an affluent Danish community.
As Cecilie searches for Ruby, she begins confronting issues that reach into her own family, including the way wealth, race, gender and social status shape relationships inside the home.
Netflix released the six-part limited series globally on May 15, 2025. It was created by Ingeborg Topsøe and directed by Per Fly, with a cast that includes Marie Bach Hansen, Danica Curcic, Simon Sears, Lars Ranthe, Sara Fanta Traore, Excel Busano, Donna Levkovski, Lukas Zuperka and Frode Bilde Rønsholt.
The series is now streaming on Netflix.