SICK OF MYSELF

A dark comedy that lacks a bite, with lead characters beyond redemption: only if you can stomach that uninviting mix you might find some enjoyment in the poorly executed Sick of Myself.

On paper Sick of Myself is a satire you'd want to check out. After all, the story about Signe, a young woman who poisons herself with skin-mutilating pills for the sole purpose of becoming the centre of attention sounds ingenious. If only the execution had been as good as the premise ...

A first stumbling block that the Norwegian never overcomes are the characters. Not just the lead character but everyone surrounding her are self-centred and obnoxious, making it nearly impossible to feel any sort of empathy towards them.

A second faux-pas is the repetitive structure. Over and over again the script pushes Signe to the edge of sanity in her ever more complicated lies, only to submerge the viewer in one of her fame-seeking fantasies and then start over again. By the third or fourth time this happens, you've long tuned out.

That's not to say that some sequences in Sick of Myself do almost work. This is the case for a late in the game photo shoot for disabled models, including Signe. Here the satire nearly shows the bite that the movie so desperately needs, with the operative word still being 'almost' alas.

Thus Sick of Myself annoyingly squanders a premise ripe for plucking, landing the film far closer to the self-indulgent Triangle of Sadness than to that other 2022 dark Norwegian comedy The Worst Person in the World.

release: 2022

director: Kristoffer Borgli

starring: Kristine Kujath Thorp, Eirik Sæther, Fanny Vaager, Henrik Mestad