A happy, carefree teenager goes on a trip with her sports team. This is how viewers get to know 15-year-old Stella Sandell in the Swedish series “The Lie”. The Scandinavian production has been at the top of the Netflix charts for some time. And for a good reason.
Stella’s initial lightheartedness soon comes to an end. At summer camp she gets involved with an older boy. They kiss, then both want more. However, when young Robin begins to take off Stella’s clothes, the girl realizes that she doesn’t want to go that far. But her protest is timid, she tells Robin that she doesn’t want what he’s doing, but doesn’t physically defend herself.
After she confesses to her father that she was raped, her parents take her to the doctor where she is examined. But Stella’s mother, a successful lawyer herself, suspects that reporting her daughter could do more harm than good. There are no traces of rape on her body; Stella admits that she did not scream. “What is the most important thing? That we protect our Stella from further trauma or that we initiate a prosecution that we will surely lose in the end?” she asks her husband. “The only thing that counts in court is what you can prove,” says Ulrika Sandell.
And so the two decide for their teenage daughter. It is a rational decision by the parents, who seem distant from the emotional trauma their daughter must have just experienced.
“The Lie” vividly tells what can happen if rape is not dealt with and condemned. After a four-year time jump, the family is still seemingly perfect, but the cracks are visible. Stella doesn’t study like her friends, her mother Ulrika drinks too much and has an affair, and father Adam is always worried about his daughter. Until Stella is arrested for murder. She is said to have killed her boyfriend Chris, who was several years older than her. And it seems as if Stella’s best friend Amina is also keeping a secret.
In six episodes, parents Ulrika and Adam go on a search with the viewers. Not necessarily the truth, because mother and father primarily want to help their daughter.
“The Lie”, based on the novel by M.T. Edvardsson, is not a classic whodunit narrative. Rather, it’s about showing what happens when (especially young) victims are left alone with their trauma. And what responsibilities parents have. “We have failed Stella since the rape. That has destroyed us all,” says father Adam in a crucial scene. And it’s about what happens when women aren’t believed.
Equally important in “The Lie” is the topic of consent, i.e. consent to sexual acts. “No means no” has been emphasized for several years. But what does it really mean? How do you deal with victims who have not lashed out in their state of shock? After six episodes, you may not have a definitive answer to these questions. But Stella’s story makes you think – and that’s an important first step.
