Review: Anxious People (Folk med ångest) from Sweden

Per Andersson and Anna Granath in Anxious People

Anxious People (Folk med ångest) from Sweden is a comedy, a mystery, and a heartfelt drama with themes of family, parenthood, and forgiveness. Its six episodes take less than 3 hours to play out, so it’s a perfect evening binge. It’s a Netflix series.

Anxious People (Folk med ångest) features an ensemble cast. Each gets a moment in the spotlight as the central mystery is solved.

The story begins about 15 years in the past with the suicide of a man who jumps off a bridge. He gives a boy who tries to stop him a blue envelope and asks him to deliver it to the bank.

Jump ahead to the present. Several people are touring an apartment during an open house. Just down the street, an armed robber tries to steal money from the bank. When informed that this is a bank that doesn’t have any actual cash, the robber runs down the street and ducks into the open house. Two local cops who were standing nearby pursue on foot.

Marika Lagercrantz in Anxious People
Anna-Lena is married to Roger

Because the robber has a gun, the people in the apartment assume they are hostages and drop to the floor without instruction. I’ll give you the names of the actors, but not too much information about who they are or why they are at the open house. That would spoil the fun. The characters are played by Lottie Ejebrant, Anna Granath, Per Andersson, Elina Du Rietz, Carla Sehn, Petrina Solange, Marika Lagercrantz, Sascha Zacharias and Leif Andrée. Among this group are an older husband and wife, a pregnant woman and her wife, the bank manager, some single women, and a man in a bunny suit.

Alfred Svensson in Anxious People
I’ll solve this. I will!

The police who chased the robber into the apartment consisted of a father (Dan Ekborg) and son (Alfred Svensson) team. Yet the robber mysteriously disappeared from the apartment. The police interview the apartment hostages repeatedly. The son is gung ho to catch the robber. The father would like to see the whole case go away.

With each episode, each interview, we see how interconnected the people are and how close they became during their hostage experience. Friendships, romances, and the answer to that long ago suicide surface before the story ends. As each new secret is revealed themes of family become prominent, and the ending is a heartwarming one.

The series was written by Fredrik Backman, based on his book. Backman also wrote A Man Called Ove.


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6 thoughts on “Review: Anxious People (Folk med ångest) from Sweden”

  1. I watched this. I didn’t find it that funny although I could see an effort there to make it funny. The father and son cops were idiots who should never have been loose, never mind being actual cops. It looked like an attempt at American humour which, compared to British humour, always looks contrived. When you are trying to copy contrived humour, that’s even worse. Korean and Chinese humour also attempts to copy American humour and their attempts are embarrassing to watch. Hopeless really.

    British humour is natural and not forced. It requires innate, intelligent spontaneity to pull off well. The British and Aussies are good at it, the others are wannabes.

    Still it was a compelling series if you need something light to fill in some time.

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