Is Quicksand a true story? Netflix's intense new thriller has audiences hooked
10 April 2019, 18:33
Netflix's latest teen drama Quicksand has viewers hooked as it tells the story of Maja, a teen girl in the middle of a heartbreaking school shooting. But is Quicksand based on a true story?
Is Quicksand based on a true story? Netflix's first Swedish-language original, Quicksand (Störst av allt), premiered on April 5. The story follows Maja (Hanna Ardéhn), a school girl on trial for murder and incitement after her boyfriend Sebastian (Felix Sandman) carries out a deadly school shooting.
As the gripping and often realistic-seeming story of Maja and her schoolmates unfolds, viewers might wonder whether Quicksand is based on a true story.
Is Quicksand a true story?
Quicksand is not based on a true story and the events that take place in the six episode series didn't actually happen in real life. Quicksand (Störst av allt) is based on a 2016 award winning book of the same name by Swedish author Malin Persson Giolito. In 2017, Netflix announced that it would be adapting the popular novel for its platform, making Quicksand its first Swedish-language original.
In a 2017 Bookbrunch interview, Malin Persson Giolito explained that the book is a commentary about the character of Maja but also "the society that we live in".
"I know that when I talked about the book four or five years ago when I started writing it, and I told people I was writing a story about a school shooting, everyone looked at me as if, 'Well, who's going to read that?' But I knew deep down that it was not a story about a school shooting as much as it is a story about Maja and the society that we live in," she explained to Bookbrunch.
Even though Maja, Sebastian, Samir, and Amanda aren't based on real people, there is no denying that the story incorporates very real elements our culture and society.
Themes of teenage rage, prejudice, excess, drug use, and abuse put the viewer right in Maja's shoes as the mysterious circumstances of the fictional school shooting are slowly revealed.
