Sick of Myself

Signe feels invisible. Realising the immediate attention people pay to tragedies, she starts to embellish stories – details of how she helped a woman who stumbled into the café she works at all bloody are only partially true – or fakes a severe nut allergy at her boyfriend’s swanky art reception. When this is still not enough to compete with the recognition he receives as an artist, the young woman goes even further to invite malady into her own life: she starts taking pills whose side effects are known to cause visible disfigurement.

Written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli, Sick of Myself has underneath its immensely dark comedy a socio-critical study using a modified depiction of Munchausen syndrome to expose our collective narcissism. There is a fight for the spotlight that the Internet and social media may not have created but have definitely facilitated in recent years, and, paired with an innate morbid curiosity, victimhood has almost become a form of fetish that Signe decides to tap into.

Through creating an abominable yet undeniably relatable protagonist, the filmmakers have ensured that audiences are forced to admit that even though they might not take things as far as this character, they definitely understand the self-involved yearning underneath.

Some of the feature’s dexterous sequences take the viewer straight into Signe’s fantasy, how she hopes her actions will play out – the outcome in reality often presents a jarring contrast. One of her imagined scenarios involves a cameo appearance by Anders Danielsen Lie (star of last year’s Norwegian Cannes sensation The Worst Person in the World). By no later than this moment, audiences will ask themselves why this couldn’t have been the title for Borgli’s film: Signe is much more deserving of the superlative than Renate Reinsve’s Julie.

Kristine Kujath Thorp gives a heartfelt and witty performance as Signe. The actress’s classically stunning features add another sinister layer to her character’s willingness to destroy that very beauty.

Selina Sondermann

Sick of Myself does not have a UK release date yet.

Watch our interviews with the director and star.

Read more reviews and interviews from our London Film Festival 2022 coverage here.

For further information about the festival visit the official BFI website here.

Watch the trailer for Sick of Myself here: