I used to work with Asperger's kids when I was a teacher's aide many years ago so I'm always interested to see how Asperger's is portrayed on television.
It's inevitable that with Astrid et Raphaelle that one is going to compare Sara Mortensen's portrayal of Astrid with Sofia Helen's portrayal of the Swedish Detective, Saga, in the Swedish-Danish series The Bridge. The difference is quite remarkable.
While Sofia Helen's portrayal was excellent and worthy of the many accolades she received for The Bridge, I'm afraid that Sara's version in this series doesn't quite work. It took me a while to figure out what was wrong but in the end I decided that while Helen managed to convince me that her character was indeed living with Asperger's, Mortensen's character came across as somebody who was just pretending to have Asperger's. The difference is significant: i.e. I felt that Astrid was somebody pretending to be living with Asperger's rather than someone who actually had the condition. It all seemed quite fake.
It just failed miserably for me and my wife wasn't convinced by the role either.
We gave up after two episodes.
It's inevitable that with Astrid et Raphaelle that one is going to compare Sara Mortensen's portrayal of Astrid with Sofia Helen's portrayal of the Swedish Detective, Saga, in the Swedish-Danish series The Bridge. The difference is quite remarkable.
While Sofia Helen's portrayal was excellent and worthy of the many accolades she received for The Bridge, I'm afraid that Sara's version in this series doesn't quite work. It took me a while to figure out what was wrong but in the end I decided that while Helen managed to convince me that her character was indeed living with Asperger's, Mortensen's character came across as somebody who was just pretending to have Asperger's. The difference is significant: i.e. I felt that Astrid was somebody pretending to be living with Asperger's rather than someone who actually had the condition. It all seemed quite fake.
It just failed miserably for me and my wife wasn't convinced by the role either.
We gave up after two episodes.