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It is only about the investigation into her death.
Sren Malling (Borgen) plays Jens Mller Jensen, the chief detective responsible for the case.
They also flip anxiously through forensic reports clipped inside manila envelopes with edges that grow more worn with time.
They spend a lot of time answering phone calls, and making other phone calls.
Wall disappeared after going out on assignment in a homemade submarine.
No one expresses surprise about his sexual preferences.
They almost never say his name.
Its blunt and its without embellishment.
Its not just that theres no half-impressed, half-disgusted examination of the suspect, its that hesnot there.
He never appears onscreen.
The detectives do work from his statements, picking apart the details of what he claims happened.
Theres very little time spent on interviewing witnesses, either, or probing into all the ancillary personalities.
Walls boyfriend and friends are entirely absent; the suspects social life is very nearly absent as well.
The challenge of finding evidence consumes most ofThe Investigation.
The narrow focus and the sheer improbability of proving this crime is preciselyThe Investigations point.
Still,The Investigationis also a reminder of why very little crime TV is like this.
How many dead ends, how many ambiguous clues will they find?
How long will these poor parents suffer?
In many waysThe Investigationfeels like an answer to the question of crime TVs moral and ethical unease.
It focuses extensively on the victim and her family, and ignores the perpetrator almost entirely.
The remaining outline looks so empty, and its too tempting to fill that blank space.
This review has been updated to note that Kim Wall was on assignment when she disappeared.
