Director Kristoffer Borgli first introduces us to Signe and Thomas (Kristine Kujath Thorp and Eirik Sæther) just as they are ordering a $2,300 bottle of wine at an expensive Oslo restaurant. It’s implied that this young, attractive couple is successful and in love, but it only takes a few lines of dialogue to start showing the cracks in this assumption. It’s decided that Signe will pretend to get a phone call, giving her a reason to excuse herself and go outside. Once there, Thomas bolts from the restaurant with the fancy bottle under his arm, with their waiter in hot pursuit.
This opening scene is played for laughs, but there’s a cynicism and resentment that undercut the hijinx. While still in the restaurant, Signe has a condition for going along with the theft: Thomas must tell their friends that it was her that stole the bottle. Later, while at a party, Thomas regales the crowd about the incident but leaves Signe completely out of the story. This simple omission gives us the first clues as to Signe’s state of mind, and the vanity that consumes her life.
From here, Signe’s actions grow increasingly self-destructive, so much so that, at times, Sick of Myself more resembles the kind of body horror usually reserved for David Cronenberg films. Things get ugly, both literally and figuratively, but it isn’t just the self-inflicted disfigurement Signe eventually subjects herself to that gives the story such a gruesome turn. As her behavior unravels, so does her psychosis, which reveals itself in not only her disturbing actions but also the grand fantasies she cooks up about one-upping those in her life who haven’t paid her the kind of reverence she thinks she’s entitled to.
Sick of Myself certainly isn’t the first film to satirize and poke holes in the negative effects of social media and influencer culture, and it damned sure won’t be the last, but thanks to a fantastically unhinged performance from Kujath, it stands out as one of the most unsettling. Kujath portrays Signe with an odd mixture of naivete and callousness that often manifests somewhere between “deer in headlights” and a calculated manipulator. Watching her maneuver every social situation to rearrange herself as the center of attention is, at first, comically uncomfortable. By the end, however, it becomes tragic, petty, and distinctly uncomfortable in ways you might not see coming. And perhaps most interesting is that depending on when you were born and to what level you were raised with a screen in your hand might determine your level of sympathy for Signe and her popularity-based disorder.
James is a writer, skateboarder, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.