This dark comedy takes aim at the attention-obsessed - and fully hits the target...
Director: Kristoffer Borgli
Starring: Kristine Kujath Thorp, Eirik Sæther, Fanny Vaager
Running time: 95 minutes
Sick of Myself, a new-wave Norwegian tragicomedy, follows conceited young woman, Signe, on her self-aggrandising quest to warp her lofty ideals regarding fame and praise into a crazed, contorted reality.
Over the span of 95 minutes, director Kristoffer Borgli satirises contemporary culture's absurd clamour for attention in a seamlessly scandinavian style of comedy that makes our main character's emotional escalation into egoistic extremity in equal parts amusing and disturbing ways.
The film begins in the fervour of Signe’s boyfriend Thomas’ new art exhibition. Held at a gallery that is repeatedly praised and defined as ‘impressive’ by their mutual friends, Thomas’ achievement seems to be eclipsing every aspect of Signe’s life. Slipping and submerging under the shadow of her partner, Signe engages in solemn interludes of jealous self-flattery.
Being unable to encounter the success of another without being confronted with your own feelings of failure is an ugly side of the human ego - but it is still a natural one. Borgli immediately plays with this shameful universal feeling to construct a morally-flawed character designed for the audience to seek cringed solace and comfort in relating to. But, just ten minutes in, as we’re watching Signe fake a deathly reaction at her boyfriend's after-party just to direct attention onto her, the relational factor of her character completely dissipates - and we’re left to uneasily watch the cinematic examination of a narcissist.
This is the comedic essence of the film and the dangerous crux of Signe’s character. Affirmed by a medical professional that her rash is somewhat unusual, Signe takes this addiction to new heights, even purposely overdosing so she can faint in the middle of her boyfriend's magazine shoot
The film's driving action is Signe’s unrelenting vanity.
Her belief that she is deserving of all eyes all of the time is in a disjuncture, however, with the fact that she can’t retain people's interest for over five minutes. Aware that her bizarre fashioning of lies and bland repetition of other people's ruminations is beginning to lose its charm, Signe must find a new way to gain attention. After reading an online article about the intense, unfixable skin rashes that the Russian drug Lidexol, causes, Signe visits Stian, her socially-inept drug dealer - who she actually pretends is dead for an interesting conversation snippet at a party - to track down and sell her this underground drug. And the drug, of course, works.
After garnering up enough sympathy from her concerned boyfriend and intrigued friends, Signe takes a self-indulgent trip to the doctor - who, when practically pleading with her to remove her jacket, receives the reply: "No. Can’t we just talk about it instead?"
This is the comedic essence of the film and the dangerous crux of Signe’s character. Affirmed by a medical professional that her rash is somewhat unusual, Signe takes this addiction to new heights, even purposely overdosing so she can faint in the middle of her boyfriend's magazine shoot.
"Is it Contagious?" Thomas asks once again.
Completely covered in bandages, strapped to a life support machine, and her boyfriend's primary concern is how her mystery illness impacts him. It is in the hilariously deadpan hospital sequence, where Thomas turns up with no flowers, no card, only a copy of his latest front cover spread in D2 Magazine, that we realise he is really not much better.
Signe reacts to Thomas’ strange acts of male self-absorption with discontent - not because his arrogance is off-putting, but because it is inalienable. However hard she tries, she cannot assimilate to the levels of attention her naturally-charismatic boyfriend harnesses
The construction of his character seems to be playing out the archetypal style of arrogance specific to the already wealthy, male artist who seems to only value women in terms of the aesthetic qualities they can input into his life.
Their relationship, prior to Signe’s escalating illness, is based entirely on the way they aggravate and exacerbate one another's egos. Thomas forces her into these ridiculous games of stealing small signifiers of wealth he does not need. Thomas believes Signe is the only girl that will facilitate his bourgeois kleptomania. And Signe acquiesces - as long as she gets to be centre stage in his excited retellings.
Signe reacts to Thomas’ strange acts of male self-absorption with discontent - not because his arrogance is off-putting, but because it is inalienable. However hard she tries, she cannot assimilate to the levels of attention her naturally-charismatic boyfriend harnesses.
But youthful self-absorption is not narcissism. And Thomas’ preoccupation with pleasure, and laser-focus on his own image as an artist, does not rival that of Signe’s inexorable pursuit for sympathy and attention.
It would be a definite stretch to claim that Borgli was attempting any sort of Freudian analysis for this film, which is only minimal parts social commentary anyway, but all of Signe’s delusional daydreams certainly seem to be nodding toward the psychoanalytic concept that one's desire for acknowledgement can always be linked back to one's desires for their emotionally-unavailable parents' affection.
Signe dips in and out of dreamlike sequences throughout, and the two that stand out most are her hypothetical funeral and a pretend daytime television interview. The latter involves Signe’s business-man father coming out mid-chat to apologise for being so distant, to say sorry for not visiting her in hospital, to which she cries live on TV and fosters even more sympathy from the fictionalised viewers at home. The former takes place in a subversive sexual interlude, in which Signe orgasms to the daydream of her father being rejected in front of the large number of guests, all crying and lined up outside the doors to her wake. He’s not on the guest list. He can’t get in. And he can’t stop crying.
Kristoffer Borgli dissects the most repulsive human traits that sit within us all to present a spectacle of a young woman's dangerous descent into self-obsession
The main object of Signe’s extreme narcissism always seems to call back to her absent father, and with any other character, anyone else who wasn’t so hell-bent on attracting semblances of sympathy, one would be able to pity and perhaps relate to her. But as the film reaches its denouement and Signe is alone in a barren apartment with only her illness support group to listen to her lies, the audience can’t help but think Signe is truly beyond saving.
The Norwegian nuisances and deadpan humour make Sick of Myself a hilarious, mature watch in which the audience is suspended in a complete rejection of Signe’s arrogance while being reminded of their own narcissistic impulses. Kristoffer Borgli dissects the most repulsive human traits that sit within us all to present a spectacle of a young woman's dangerous descent into self-obsession.
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