Kristoffer Borgli’s Sick of Myself follows two of the more unlikeable characters in recent cinema. Thomas (Eirik Sæther) is an Oslo artist who steals furniture for sculptures that look to these eyes just like the original pieces of furniture if they were to be stacked up on top of each other in a moving truck. Thomas’s failure to transform stolen found objects, and the acclaim that he garners for doing so, is one of Borgli’s subtlest jokes. Thomas is a parasite selling fake art to pseuds who are too nervous to admit that they don’t “get it,” rendering him perfectly suited for his similarly inclined girlfriend, Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp).
Signe is a barista who, resenting the attention Thomas’s art is earning him, concocts a series of self-pitying lies in order to occupy his limelight. Dinners with friends are an awkward affair, as Thomas and Signe gobble up all the oxygen with their petty rivalries. They’re narcissists readymade for a satire of the victimization narratives that obsess modern media.
Thomas and Signe are so untrustworthy that it may take the viewer a while to get a handle on what’s going on in the film. For a while, I thought Thomas was a thief and slacker, until it becomes evident that his art is somehow taken seriously. It’s also initially murky as to whether Thomas and Signe are lovers or siblings, as they lie about their identities routinely.
One sharp scene finds Signe pretending not only to be Thomas’s sister, but to have a nut allergy so that the guests a dinner party will fawn over her instead of paying attention to Thomas’s speech. This joke hits close to home, because as anyone working in the restaurant industry will attest, allergies are “in” right now. If celebrities can fetishize past trauma as a career move, regular folks can utilize food allergies, real and manufactured alike, to render them the emperor of their table—a way of exerting their will under a pretense of powerlessness.
Sick of Myself has no interest in making friends, and for that it merits praise. Borgli satirizes the insidious power and hypocrisy of victim-branding. If you’re marginalized, if you’ve suffered, if you’re unattractive, if you aren’t conventional, then you’re a branding opportunity that’s to be unquestioned. To be skeptical of a deemed victim is to risk being labeled intolerant, and there’s no greater fear in social media. Cognizant of media’s victimhood fetish, Signe gobbles up a drug that causes skin rashes, purposefully developing an illness that scars her face and body.
At her worst, Signe’s pus-engorged visage suggests a melting candle, and thusly she’s finally able to commandeer the public’s attention. Signe nets a career as a model for companies looking to highlight their inclusive consumer quadrants, which is to say companies seeking congratulation for not using standard-issue hotties as their models. Signe might be bleeding all over sets, on the verge of passing out, but don’t worry, we’ll get pictures that underscore empathy and diversity.
Borgli has chosen worthy targets, but he fails to understand that satire can’t hurt you if it isn’t emotionally involving. To put it more bluntly: If you’re bored, then you’re unlikely to be outraged. Sick of Myself is detached, smug, and repetitive. Borgli is unduly proud of himself for concocting his unlikable protagonists, and he marinates in their repulsive self-absorption. Contrary to popular opinion, the characters of a narrative needn’t be likable, but they should be interesting. Borgli defines Thomas and Signe as venal, superficial stick figures and leaves it at that. Once the rules of this game have been established, nothing they do is surprising, and since they’re virtually the entire show, the stakes of Sick of Myself are low.
Sick of Myself’s tunnel vision feels like a failure of nerve. Watching Thomas and Signe hurt one another and themselves over and over doesn’t implicate us, doesn’t dare us to question our platitudes or own up to our own politically incorrect resentments. After all, they’re both monsters, and as such awful enough for us to distance ourselves from them.
One scene, the most daring in the film, disrupts this myopia. When Signe goes to speak with Lisa (Andrea Bræin Hovig), who’s looking to represent her as a model, the agent has a blind woman employed as an admin, who proceeds to make a mess of various tasks. The implication is that this admin has been hired to satisfy optics and quotas—an extension of victim-branding—without an eye toward the common sense of whether this job fits her and vice versa.
Borgli parodies such hiring practices using deadpan slapstick humor, climaxing with the woman accidentally trailing Signe’s blood into the office—an example of carnage writ by nesting hypocrisies. The difference between this set piece and others in the film is that Borgli involves a character who’s an innocent. The joke isn’t on the blind woman but on Lisa’s vanity, and Sick of Myself could use more jokes that are willing to take such risks.
But there’s cleansing impudence and there’s scoring points in a hipster vacuum, and this film too often embodies the latter impulse. As Borgli gets off on being exactly the kind of callous jokester that the media chastises, Sick of Myself ultimately reveals itself as catnip for the very bougie audiences who might buy Thomas’s ridiculous found-furniture installations.
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