Amy Poehler narrates this funny, practical series about sorting out your clutter before you die. It’s a moving – if not delicate – look at our mortality
wonder what it says about western society that the once-dominant home makeover show has been transformed into the all-encompassing life makeover show? Whereas we once had a lick of paint and some bold decisions about stencilling, now TV of a similar ilk offers to perform a complete inventory of one’s existence. Joiningand so on in the overhaul genre is The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. It’s a similarly lovely intervention, with a little more culture-clash thrown in for good measure.
They begin in Kansas City with the fabulously larger-than-life Suzi, a gravel-voiced former singing waitress and lifelong showgirl, who, at 75, is starting to think about what might happen to her stuff when she dies. Swedish people talking about death is normal, Poehler explains, but it “freaks out” Americans.
Suzi describes herself as a vagabond and her house is filled with mementoes from her travels and performing days. They offer her memories, but they don’t seem to bring happiness, or spark joy, as another expert might put it. “I am a prisoner of my possessions,” she says. How many people can relate? Most of us, I suspect.
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