Anticipation.
From the same kids who brought us The Worst Person in the World.
Enjoyment.
Pushes its own small envelope in lots of amusingly grotesque ways.
In Retrospect.
Taps into something unique about the degradation that comes with modern celebrity culture.
There’s a very funny and provocative concept at the core of Kristoffer Borgli’s none-more-black relationship comedy, Sick of Myself, and it’s the question of whether we can control how our body reacts to extreme self-abuse. Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp) is a charismatic layabout who is also a world champion narcissist.
She is in a relationship with Eirik Sæther’s on-the-rise artist, Thomas, and their romance is framed as an index of caustic microaggressions and petty rivalries. Thomas’ fixation with a magazine cover shoot causes Signe to purchase some pills from the internet that she knows cause an adverse reaction in an attempt to curry sympathy with him, as well as the family and peers who have understandably shunned her over the years.
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The obvious flaws in her character prompt her to rush the process, and the film becomes a version of, what if the Elephant Man wanted to be the Elephant Man as a way to boost his social media metrics? It offers a spitefully funny takedown of a culture which sees no differences between the acts of soul-bearing and self-abasement, and just when you think Borgli couldn’t twist the knife any further, he does just that.
In many ways, it could be classified as a horror movie and Sigme is the victim that we purposefully don’t empathise with as she suffers so brutally, and that gambit works for and against the film when it comes to building an emotional connection with such hateful characters.
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