Sick Of Myself

Sick Of Myself

Still from Sick of Myself
Oslo Pictures

VERDICT: With a deft hand for black comedy, Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli takes his examination of modern narcissism to its body-horror extreme.

In the first few minutes of Sick of Myself, the nature of its protagonist becomes clear. She is the actual worst person in the world. Maybe it’s not coincidental that the Joachim Trier film with that title also premiered in Cannes and was made by Oslo Films. Or maybe it is. Maybe the only important connection here is that anyone looking for the worst people in the world should head to Norway, where this film also takes place.

In any case, after helping her klepto-artist boyfriend Thomas steal a €2,300 bottle of wine from a fancy restaurant, Signe, our protagonist who’s more of an anti-hero, says that narcissism and talent improve the odds that a person will find success. The rest of the film takes this statement to the absurdist extreme. At some point, it feels like Ruben Ostlund might be at the helm, but by the end, writer-director-editor Kristoffer Borgli has inverted the Swedish director’s gaze on the élite.

Things really get going when Signe rescues a woman who has been bitten by a dog. She holds the woman as blood stains her outfit. It is an admirable moment of empathy, but Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp, superbly cast) learns the wrong lesson from it. She tells the story more than once, each time making sure to include how nobody else wanted to touch the bleeding lady. But in one flashback, we see her tell a man to stand back. Perhaps she wants the glory of the rescue all to herself? That’s one reading of her actions. It is not enough, though: she comes to understand that the attention is more for victim than rescuer. The experience pushes her buttons enough that she concocts a plan to be an attention-worthy victim. If the search is for a narcissist, we have our gal.

Borgli’s deft hand at suspense is evident when, ahead of her next act, Signe is seen scrolling through a website. A skin condition is shown on screen and it’s blamed on an adverse drug reaction. What is she up to now, the viewer asks. Let’s just say the answer to that moves the film from a deranged romcom featuring two insane lovers to semi-body horror. But the film is mostly rooted to the ground with flashes of the mundane, as in one funny exchange where a man explains why he sent a vulgar photo to Signe rather than his intended target, Siri. Their names were too close in his list of contacts. You almost made it, Signe replies.

The inclusion of this little scene is one of the wonders of Norwegian cinema, which can produce a film out of one girl’s fascination with attention.

It’s a little surprising though that in today’s world of virality, Signe isn’t overly obsessed with social media, given that it is a space that operates at scale. Part of the problem in that regard is her boyfriend Thomas, a self-absorbed artist who is more interested in his magazine interview than finding out about his girlfriend’s health after she returns from the hospital. Their love, if we can call it that, is based on a love for attention as well as mutual loathing. He’s more interested in the old-fashioned kind of attention—speeches, covers and exhibitions—and that’s what Signe moves towards. You see how he undercuts her in public and how she responds by sticking to whatever lie she is telling. Weirdly, they really seem to get along, much to the frustration of others in their orbit. In one poignant scene, Signe tells her friend, “Isn’t it weird that you can’t be happy for other people?” You see that she’s crazy but she has also asked a question that gets to the heart of a certain kind of friendship. The ensuing discussion, brief as it is, is the realest one we see onscreen and the discomfort spills over to the viewer.

Borgli has a line from Tom Waits—“I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things”—as the would-be ethos of his film. But the shock of Signe’s last act could have come from a different songwriter: “I don’t even know how it came to this,” says Jay Z on Lost Ones, “except that fame is the worst drug known to man.” There is no deep pathology here, Borgli seems to say, just a hunger for the highs of fame and success in today’s world.

Cannes and the familiarity of the subject matter should ensure Sick of Myself gets the attention it deserves. It’s unlikely to be as successful as Trier’s easier-to-swallow film, though—but, considering the utter blackness of its comedy, mainstream audiences should prove large enough to gratify even the hollow heart of its protagonist.

Director, screenwriter: Kristoffer Borgli
Cast: Kristine Kujath Thorp, Eirik Sæther, Fanny Vaager
Producers: Dyveke Bjørkly Graver, Andrea Berentsen Ottmar
Co-producers: Kristina Börjeson, Anthony Muir, Mimmi Spång,   
Cinematography: Benjamin Loeb
Editing: Kristoffer Borgli
Production design: Henrik Svensson
Sound: Gustaf Berger, David Kuuse, Jesper Miller
Production Company: Oslo Films
World Sales: Memento International 

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard)
In Norwegian

98 minutes