Barracuda Queens Review: Theft as Revenge Against Men | Netflix Series
Cast: Alva Bratt, Tindra Monsen, Sarah Gustafsson, Tea Stjärne, Sandra Zubovic, Izabella Scorupco, Carsten Björnlund, Johannes Kuhnke, Max Ulveson
Created By: Amanda Adolfsson
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
The review of Barracuda Queens, the new Swedish series available on Netflix freely inspired by a true story. A new proposal is added to the large Netflix catalog, this time Swedish, light, and without great pretensions like its young protagonists. The miniseries, consisting of six episodes, is a sort of teen drama which – and perhaps this is the most interesting aspect of the project – is based on a true story that took place in the mid-1990s, when the media explosion of Girl Power, a mantra spread by pop groups such as the Spice Girls who placed the importance of female friendship at the center of their brand, marked a generation of teenagers. A cultural phenomenon ascribable to mainstream feminism which in those years flared up in many videogame and musical products (see the figure of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, perhaps one of the most representative in the seriality of those years). So, let’s go see how (and if) this series returns the atmosphere of empowerment in our review of Barracuda Queens.
Lollo Millkvist (Alva Bratt), Mia Thorstensson (Tea Stjärne), and sisters Klara and Freida Rapp (Tindra Monsen, Sandra Strandberg Zubovic) are friends, best friends, in Barracuda Queens. They do everything together, despite their differences and different lives. To use the title of a song popularized by Cindy Lauper in 1983, Girls just want to have fun and they want just that. It seems a paradox and yet Barracuda Queens, a series consisting of 6 episodes – the second Netflix Swedish production set in the richest area of Sweden, Djursholm – created by Camilla Ahlgren, drawing inspiration from a true story vaguely reminiscent of the Lidingöigan, or Lidingö League (named after the wealthy Stockholm suburb from which some of the thieves came), which entered the Netflix catalog on June 5, 2022, begins with a police interrogation at protagonists. Why am I there? Do they have something to hide? 1995, at a party, a group of guys are dancing and drinking. There are also the four hungover friends who return home the next morning, each to their own lives, with their problems, but the repercussions of that night haunt them. How to solve the problems? Easy, join a group and start stealing.
Barracuda Queens Review: The Story Plot
Stockholm, mid-90s. Lollo, Mia, and sisters Klara and Frida are a group of young friends who call themselves Barracuda Queens, after a beach famous for the parties it hosts. After spending a fun-filled weekend in a luxury hotel, the girls find themselves overcharged for a disproportionate amount they are unable to pay, even though the families are Stockholm’s high society (all except Mia, the only one having to work as a domestic worker for a wealthy family). To maintain the facade of good girls in front of parents and boyfriends, the four decide, almost by chance, to improvise thieves of valuables in the houses of the neighborhood, targeting people they know (and whose movements, above all, they know).
The first victim is the house of Amina, who has recently arrived in the city. Things don’t go as planned and the first criminal experiment turns out to be a fiasco, but Amina, instead of denouncing them, decides to join the gang. Thus begins a dangerous game that will take them to the center of a spiral of increasingly ambitious lies and robberies, in which the need to repay the debt is soon replaced by the adrenaline and euphoria of engaging in experiences dominated by a sense of omnipotence. Indicative is the fact that, during robberies, they always find a way to uncork a precious bottle, celebrating and toasting their success. The success which, due to the unscrupulous attitude of those who are not used to dealing with the unpleasant consequences of their choices, is soon interrupted by a police investigation (which, however, seems to do everything possible not to enter into open conflict with girls’ families).
Barracuda Queens Review and Analysis
The next morning, Lollo wakes up topless on a beach next to a stranger. Klara falls asleep in a bathtub, causing the bathroom to flood. The bill for the damage caused by Klara arrives at 75,000 crowns. Around the same time, Lollo receives a hefty bar bill of 100,000 kroner. Even though Lollo and Klara‘s parents have the money to easily cover these expenses, both know that they have gone too far and cannot tell their parents the truth. They’re going to have to pay those bills on their own somehow. This is precisely one of the important themes of the series, sisterhood. They are a group, they are better than the other characters in the story, they are lucid, intelligent, stubborn, and courageous, not alone, but they certainly are when they are together. When they feel lost, maybe not right away but then they confide and lean on each other, someone does them disrespect, they are ready to rebel. They are indeed queens – the name Barracuda derives from the nearby beach, Barracuda in fact, where the boys went to see the mystery of lies.
They have everything yet they have nothing, they are fragile, they are often drunk, they cheat on exams, they have dysfunctional, separated families, their parents lie, they lie, they think to themselves, they are fragile, sometimes sleazy, even ridiculous. That’s why our thieves are so united, that’s why they put their friendship first (almost always, it must be said). They are full of black holes, of imperfections, of reasons why they might hate themselves and can be hated by others. And yet, Lollo, Mia, Klara, Frida, and even Amina are very lonely, at times unhappy, they fill up with things, with fun, with dancing and singing because they are bored at home, everything changes when they spend time together, stealing, preparing the shots, thinking about how to solve problems – because they have many problems and from episode to episode the feeling is that the house of cards they built is about to collapse.
The Barracuda Queens are not teenagers, they are practically adults, bored by the routine, by the rich days organized by the family, by the evenings with the old boyfriend despite their young age, the thefts instead galvanize them, and it is one of the few moments in which they are happy, it seems absurd. Lollo played a fundamental role, that of the motivator, when they had doubts, they were convinced that it would have been better to take a step back, she was ready to convince them that taking the risk would have been the right choice. The whole point is that the group is made up of women and not men like Lidingo League, in the writing phase one might have thought that making the Barracuda Queens of criminals would have been interesting because it breaks the stereotype.
Assuming that the register of the miniseries remains on a carefree and forcibly unscrupulous level, it is not well understood the need to introduce elements with an important specific weight such as the sexual violence suffered by one of the protagonists (the younger sister Frida), or the economic and social inequality of one of the girls, Mia, who, unlike the others, to support herself, does the housework for a family where, moreover, the employer subjects her to constant comments and groupings. Arguments are dismissed as quickly as they are introduced. A choice that, however, does not reconcile with a contemporary sensibility. Even the fresco of the girls’ families (potentially more interesting than the girls themselves) returns a tangle of adults whose actions differ little from those of the daughters. They are just less naive and more interested in preserving a social mask that allows them to carry on their lives undisturbed. Too bad that even here, the narrative choices and characterization of the characters do not allow you to take anything seriously. When everything is exaggerated without being surreal, and light without being funny, the risk is to settle for a series that entertains without having any bite.
Barracuda Queens Review: The Last Words
Barracuda Queens is a short series, only six episodes, also short, we immediately enter the maelstrom of history. The show is a story that aims to amuse and immediately strike the viewer, and succeeds in this, which seems made especially for binge-watching. There are some problems some narrative voids, and many characters, perhaps too many who pass in front of us and then disappear, but it is one of those products made to be seen without too much thought, even though there are moments of tension, even dramatic ones. The very clever ending of this season suggests that there will be a second season and that many more adventures for the girls could be thought of.
