Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter

Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter is a new fantasy series based on Astrid Lindgren’s classic children’s book about the beautiful friendship between the daughter and son of two rivaling bands of Swedish robbers.

I grew up with Lindgren’s work. One of my earliest cinematic memories is seeing the Pippi Longstocking movies with my family in one of our local theaters. 

Pippi was, of course, the original free spirited feminist pirate girl, living an independent life filled with weird and wonderful adventures, together with her sometimes a little more reluctant friends Tommy and Annika.

Ronja The Robber’s Daughter was a somewhat more grown up teenage version of that same girl, but set in a medieval, fantasy world. Lindgren herself adapted the book into a screenplay, which turned into an award winning movie, released in 1984, and generally regarded as a classic children’s movie. I watched a bit on YouTube and the story still holds up, even if it is clear as day that with today’s resources you could do a lot more with locations, costumes and various special effects. So yeah, remaking it forty years after the original makes a lot of sense. 

Lindgren died in 2002, but her work lives on in various shapes and forms, like musicals and other stage productions. And if you want to know a bit more about her own life, there is the pretty good biopic Becoming Astrid (2018). 

Meanwhile, Ronja, generally regarded as Lindgren’s best book, was turned into a Japanese anime series in 2014, and now it’s time for this new six part live action series. 

Originally conceived for struggling Scandinavian streamer Viaplay, the series was eventually acquired by Netflix for worldwide release.

This new version comes courtesy of Hans Rosenthal, who is best known as one of the creators and head writers of The Bridge, perhaps the ultimate Scandi Noir series.

Directed by Lisa James Larsson (A Royal Secret, Brittannia) Ronja Rövardotter follows its titular heroine, played by Kerstin Linden (The Emigrants), as she grows up in her parents’ rather large fortress. Her adventures often take her into the surrounding forest, a wonderful but also dangerous place filled with the strangest of creatures.

It’s also the place where she first meets Birk Borkason (Jack Bergenholtz Henriksson in his first screen role), the son of her father’s greatest rival, and so into their blossoming friendship a twist of family loyalties is introduced. 

The trailer suggests that this Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter series plays like a youth oriented cross between Game of Thrones and Robin Hood, with Kerstin Linden playing Ronja as a plucky heroine in the vein of Millie Bobby Brown in Stranger Things. 

Even though that kind of familiarity may breed at some point, well, not contempt but a certain ennui, I’m pretty sure that Eurocentric audiences will lap this new series up over the Easter holidays and beyond.

And if you want more Lindgren adaptions, rest assured, cause only recently it was announced that the great Thomas Vinterberg will direct a limited series of The Brothers Lionheart. 

So what’s next, a Sofia Coppola remake of Pippi Longstocking? I can’t hardly wait…