Sick of Myself: A Dark Satire on Self-Promotion

Release Date：Apr/12/2023

Genre：Comedy/Drama/Horror

Director：Kristoffer Borgli

Cast：Kristine Kujath Thorp、Eirik Sæther、Anders Danielsen Lie

Viola's Rating：8.0

We’re living in an era of self-promotion. People are sick of receiving and viewing fake images of others with all the filtered pictures and glorified descriptions, and that’s the reason why apps like “Be Real” are popular nowadays. Norwegian satire Sick of Myself, which discusses this sick trend with exaggerated behaviors, is indeed thought-provoking.

As a black comedy that’s dark enough to be considered as a horror drama, Sick of Myself tells the story of the protagonist, Signe. She has been increasingly overshadowed by her boyfriend’s recent rise to fame as a contemporary artist creating sculptures from stolen furniture. Signe then comes up with an aggressive plan to reclaim her rightfully deserved attention.

Maybe introverts don’t want people’s attention, but it’s still good to be “seen,” and that’s the magic and power of getting people’s attention, which is the theme of the feature film. When it comes to the art of listening, one must learn that the spotlight doesn’t always have to be on them, but apparently, Signe and her boyfriend are two people who can’t stand the fact that someone else steals their attention, which actually makes them a perfect match. 

At one point, Signe actually wants to change, but the help or method she seeks are not the right ones, so instead of getting back on the normal track, she just pities herself and doesn’t think there’s anything wrong about what she does. Sick of Myself doesn’t specifically point out what kind of behavior people nowadays do to rationalize their behaviors, but this is one of the phenomena in society right now.

In order to present the best of oneself, many lies are put up. Of course, people also complain about their lives on social media, but no matter if it’s the bright side or the dark side, it’s important to remember that what’s on social media is only a portion of the person’s life. Sick of Myself uses extreme examples to satirize this behavior of modern people for putting up images of themselves that are not completely true.

Although Sick of Myself tells the story in a very exaggerated way, it’s still possible that people who have similar symptoms don’t sense the sarcasm. Therefore, there are two friends who don’t have too much screen time to point out that the two protagonists are super self-centered, and that’s the key reason for everything that happens to them.

Even though social media’s supposed to play a critical role in this topic in the real world, it isn’t brought up many times in Sick of Myself. The film wants the audience to feel the ridicule of living a life like Signe in real life instead of just coming up with post materials for social media. All in all, Sick of Myself isn’t an enjoyable flick because its aim is to make moviegoers feel disgusted, and it succeeds.

Picture Credit: IMDb