It was no surprise that Esto no es Sweden, from RTVE, got a nomination for best comedy series in the Feroz of 2024. Everything indicates that Poquita fe will be the winner in that category, but you never know. This is not Sweden, created by Daniel González, Valentina Viso and Aina Clotet, is an interesting and fun series. Also a disturbing fiction: is it as parodic as I think it is or are many of its characters, dialogues, plots and jokes only funny when seen from outside the social class it portrays? Centered on a young couple who decide to move to the suburbs to better raise their children (spoiler: it goes wrong), This Isn’t Sweden is a little bit Big Little Lies and a little bit Absolutely Fabulous. My question is whether González, Viso and especially Clotet are aware of what they take from each of these series. Sometimes I feel like I’m not laughing at This is not Sweden, but about it. From the series, I mean.
But this drama is full of great ideas. Its underlying theme (children as a source of conflict in a couple) is treated with enormous intelligence. Through some hilarious (and tremendously realistic) group therapy sessions, This Is Not Sweden shamelessly puts the paranoias of contemporary motherhood on the table. Also about fatherhood, of course, but the series is also very clear about that: it is the same but it is not the same. Something terrible happens after one of those outdated mommy meetings. With that event the first episode closes. It’s a risky script and it works. The smile freezes and the joke that the series made just a few minutes ago goes from white humor to black humor. Sorry: racialized.
To the viewer unfamiliar with the geography of Barcelona, ??Mariana (Aina Clotet) and Samuel (Marcel Borràs) may be led to believe that they have moved to the mountains. They have really moved from Eixample to Vallvidrera, one of the poshest neighborhoods in the Catalan city. As seen in This is not Sweden, the center of Barcelona is a stone’s throw from that peculiar community, with wild boars in the streets and avocado on toast. A great little lie in an absolutely fabulous neighborhood.
Annika (Liv Mjönes) lives with her mother and children a few meters from Mariana and Samuel. She, who is Swedish, will develop a friendship with Mariana that will unmask the meanness of her very posh Catalan neighbor. More than a worried woman, Mariana is a gossipy lady. That is compatible with wanting the best for her children, of course. And with the series being about the latter. But this is not Sweden hovers over a classism that makes me wonder if this series is being intelligently cruel to its characters for the sake of comedy or if I am the one who is baiting it so that, if you have not seen it, when You do it, you see jokes where what he wants to show This is not Sweden is the dramatic daily life of an aunt who is very unaware of how posh she is.
