First Look: Danish Thriller 'Side Effects' Hunts Missing Lethal Opioids

Variety has published exclusive first-look images from Side Effects, a Danish crime thriller about the hunt for a missing shipment of lethal opioids. Variety First-look images, meaning the first stills officially released from a production, give an early view of cast, character and mood. The images were released on 8 October. In Denmark the series is titled Fristelsen. Drama Quarterly

Josephine Park leads the cast as Chief Investigator Nora Søby. Søby heads Denmark’s top crime unit and leads the investigation at the centre of the story. Park is known to Danish audiences for The Oxe and Baby Fever, as reported by Deadline. She stars alongside Soheil Bavi, who takes a co-starring role opposite Park. The two actors carry the central police inquiry.

The case begins with a murdered security guard in the docklands, the port and warehouse area where cargo passes through. Linked to that killing is a large consignment of pills that has disappeared. The pills contain a lethal opioid. Variety describes those drugs as the “Real Killer on the Loose.” It is not only a murder to solve. It is a race to find the pills.

Behind the camera, Lasse Kyed Rasmussen is the creator and main writer, meaning he devised the series and led the scripts. Jonas Alexander Arnby co-wrote the series and directed it. The show is produced for TV 2 Denmark by Jonas Allen and Peter Bose of Miso Film. Miso Film is a Fremantle company. Fremantle is handling international sales, meaning it sells broadcast and streaming rights to buyers outside Denmark. Variety

What makes this stand out is the source of danger. Many crime stories focus on finding a killer. Here the missing pills are themselves lethal, so the search carries its own urgency for as long as they remain missing.