Sick of Myself * * * *

Got to love that Scandinavian humour.  It's the blackest of the black.  Ruben Ostland is a master of it. And recently I saw a Finish film, Fallen Leaves that too was charmingly morbid.  

Sick of Myself from director Kristoffer Borgli takes it a step further. 

How can a young woman slowly and willfully destroying herself be funny? Well if her sole motivation is a pathetic need for fame and recognition I guess it is.  Especially in an era where fame for fames sake is a genuine aspiration with some people. 

Interestingly Signe doesn't go down the path of Twitter (X) and Instagram etc. She wants mainstream - that's the real stuff! She wants to look like she was sought out, rather than self-promoted.

What price fame? I'll pay!

Signe lives with her boyfriend.  He's an "artist" who has really taken off.  He calls himself "Thomas the Thief", and that's pretty well what he does. She often helps him in his exploits. He is currently going through a furniture theft phase.

Wherever they go, whatever they do, it's all about him. At a dinner party where Thomas is being celebrated by the art elite Signe pretends to have a chronic nut allergy. That gets her a little attention, but self importance through anaphylaxis is getting a bit common these days.

Surfing the internet Signe comes across a banned Russia drug that caused a chronic and unsightly skin condition.  She manages to obtain the item on the dark web and starts taking it.  Within a short time she is having success as she slowly turns from a very pretty girl into an unsightly but tragic being.

Fearing the reason for her condition will be discovered she tries to avoid medical examinations. But she certainly makes herself available to newspapers, magazines and television. She becomes a sensation - well at least a news article.  Later she is approached by an agency that specialises in models of physical imperfection.  Her recruitment scene and her first shoot make for an unforgettable scene. 

Coupled with the reality of her situation are scenes of her own paranoid imagination: She fears she will be exposed and held up for shame and ridicule  At the same time she has fantasies of fame and global sympathy reaching even to her own funeral, where every person who she believes did not treat her right from her boyfriend, her best friend, and even her father, are brought to shame and regret.