The great South Korean director Bong Joon Ho once promised English speakers that an amazing world of cinema would open up to those who could “overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles”. Non Swedish speakers may not be amazed by Making It in Marbella, but they will be entertained by the regularity with which the cast pepper their native language with English swears and superlatives.
Aside from the foreign language element, Making It in Marbella sticks to the tried and tested reality TV format that netted Netflix seven successful seasons of Selling Sunset. Estate agents with plumped-up faces and blinding white veneers tour bonkers-yet-bland homes while stabbing each other in the back.
As the name suggests, the series is set on the sun-soaked stretch of Costa del Sol and follows the fortunes of Homerun Brokers. Founder Eric Ebbing – a gym buffed man in a white button down with something of Nicholas Holt in The Menu about him – attempts to wrangle his team of international glamazons into selling and letting high end homes, mostly to Swedes. His long-suffering local wife Jennifer Rocamora runs the marketing team with an iron fist and encourages him to whip his unruly employees into shape.
Tension is confected from the get-go around two exceptionally well-signposted plotlines. The A plot revolves around the potential promotion of Robert Bazo to the C-suite. He appears to be a workaholic and a charmer, never without his laptop (even in the spa or at a party) and regularly video calling his mum for a chat. But rival Miah van der Bilt is convinced he is a bullying wolf in sheep’s clothing who has made others quit from the stress of working with him.
Occupying the B-plot slot is the ominously named ‘Marbella Syndrome’: aka when agents are seduced away from the office by beach clubs and partying (relatable). The immaculately dressed Damla Yarraman is diagnosed with this disorder early on (symptoms include taking work calls from the pool and avoiding the office). But a silent case may also be brewing in Matias Concha, the louche ex-professional footballer who is much more concerned with drinking rosé and keeping his colleagues’ small fluffy dogs out of his sports car than working out how to open blinds or fix the air con before an open house viewing.
Hapless Eric bumbles through these workplace snafus, making you wonder if it’s a case of bimbos leading the bimbos. It makes for some (possibly not intentional) laugh-out-loud moments, with the cast and production team clearly prepared to throw subtlety and caution to the wind.
Making it in Marbella may succeed here where Buying London — cancelled after just one season — failed by dint of sunshine and eye-popping vistas alone. Watching British agents scrap and sell in gloomy Blighty clearly didn’t provide the dose of escapism required to sweeten the pill of watching the hot wannabe-rich sell to the less-hot super rich.
Why so many Scandis are flocking to Marbella is never quite explained. One agent helpfully describes it as “a mini LA”, but that could just be an attempt to draw a link between the show and its progenitor series. Californians may take umbrage at this, but according to estate agents Knight Frank the Swedish simply cannot get enough of this Spanish city. It’s the number one location for Swedes buying abroad, with the Krona up against the Euro and a local school catering to Swedish speakers.
Ultimately, Making it In Marbella is a paint-by-numbers office drama show against a backdrop of property pornography. Heavy-handed musical cues will clue you in to the tone of each conversation, while the show’s narrative arcs are re-iterated so many times that even the most devoted of phone-scrollers won’t get lost.
If your eyes focus on the screen long enough to take in the insane levels of wealth aspiration on screen – the helicopters, the yachts, the spooky “entrepreneurs” who can apparently afford to drop millions of euros on a whim to buy a house at a party – you might want to go full Parasite. But you can also tell yourself that watching something with subtitles makes you more cultured than the average Selling Sunset fan.
