MIAMI FILM FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

by Alessandra Monti

At some point in our lives, everyone has met an attention seeker. Those types of people would do anything to move the spotlight on them, right? I could ask you what the attention seeker you know has done to draw attention to themselves, but I know for sure that anything you could possibly tell me will never reach the level of craziness of Signe in SICK OF MYSELF.

Projected at Cannes Film Festival 2022, SICK OF MYSELF is a Norwegian dark comedy written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli. It’s an “unromantic” comedy that is inexplicably shameful and horrific but at the same time relatable. It tells the story of a couple living and working in Oslo. At the story’s center is Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp), a young waitress living with her boyfriend Thomas (Eirik Sæther). If there were an award for the most toxic relationship, Signe and Thomas would definitely win first place.

Since the beginning, we are aware of Thomas’ narcissistic behavior, which increases exponentially when he finds modest success with his installations of stolen chairs. In a regular relationship, we would be happy for our partner’s achievement, but this is not the case of a regular relationship. Signe becomes really bothered by Thomas’ success, and she starts to feel overshadowed by her self-absorbed boyfriend. She tries everything to draw everyone’s attention to her. She becomes so desperate and obsessed with trying to achieve this that she purposely begins abusing dangerous pharmaceutical drugs to make herself ill.  At this point, their relationship becomes a competition on who is getting more attention. As the audience, we feel that they deeply despise each other, but they still make an effort to remain lovers, probably because even holding on to the relationship status becomes a competition.

Like his fellows’ Northern European directors, Lars Von Trier and Ruben Östlund, Kristoffer Borgli also delivers a message through the big absurdities with a hint of comic that happens in SICK OF MYSELF.  The society we live in is all based on appearance, attention, and exclusivity. We are all, in the end, attention seekers, just like Signe. We can relate with her based on what she wants; what we can’t relate with her is how she gets what she wants. Borgli made the right choice in pushing the limits of Signe’s behaviors. Without escalating in the absurdity, shamefulness, and horror, the audience would have felt guilty about Signe’s desire, and we would have felt attacked, but in this way, Borgli built a sort of barrier that allowed the audience to enjoy the movie without questioning themselves but at the same time questioning themselves subconsciously.

Through the “Cannes Film Festival” and “Paris Fashion Week” shirts, we wonder if the characters wearing them have been there; through the selfies at the hospital while attached to IV and a face fully covered by bandages and through the orgasm, Signe thinks about people mourning her at her funeral; through the model agent that cares just about Signe look and not if she is actually sick, Borgli really captures the essence of what our society has become, on what we have become.

SICK OF MYSELF is a truly challenging film. It makes the viewer physically and emotionally uncomfortable. It’s grotesque, absurd, and sometimes even gross. We usually associate these terms with something negative, but SICK OF MYSELF makes them its strength. Through those feelings, SICK OF MYSELF has the power to evoke strong emotions that make us reflect on the person we are, the persons that love us and surround us, and the society we live in.