The funny thing about the film “The Worst Person in the World” from last year is that its flighty protagonist isn’t all that bad. The dark comedy “Sick of Myself,” also from Norway, says “hold my beer,” and submits an undeniably deplorable leading lady more worthy of that other film’s title. She is ugly on the inside and aims for it on the outside, too.
In this queasy satire by Kristoffer Borgli, a 20-something barista named Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp) is possessed by delusions of grandeur. Signe is certain she’s funnier, more charismatic and more interesting than the other people in her bougie upper-middle-class milieu — especially her boyfriend, Thomas (Eirik Saether), a cocky conceptual artist who makes installations from stolen furniture. Thomas’s edgy process impresses Oslo’s cultural elite, perhaps even more than the finished product. But it’s not the questionable merit of her beau’s success that irks Signe, it’s that his triumphs make her seem less important.
Then, a bloody incident at the coffee shop where she works gets her gears turning.
Played by Thorp like the Scandinavian love child of Aubrey Plaza’s social media manipulator in “Ingrid Goes West” and Jane Krakowski’s narcissist-caricature Jenna Maroney in “30 Rock,” Signe fashions herself into a spectacular victim. She turns to a bizarre form of self-mutilation to attract the attention she believes she deserves, knowingly consuming a sketchy Russian medication that causes her to break out in bulging, blistery rashes.
Refusing medical treatment, she claims her affliction is completely mysterious — the first of its kind — and later does away with her head-sock bandage to showcase her new look in all its monstrous glory. She inundates her social media channels with selfies that extol her bravery and resilience, and calls upon a journalist friend under the guise of wanting to normalize her condition. Imagine the Elephant Man with a knack for self-promotion and a morally dubious understanding of what creates social capital.
“Sick of Myself” blooms into a perverse tragedy of folly as Signe exploits her own sickness to land everything from a newspaper cover story to a contract with a modeling agency that banks off the representation of unconventional beauty. Borgli doesn’t seem particularly interested in crafting a nuanced take on victimhood culture so much as he seeks to generate outrageous humor from Signe’s increasingly absurd sense of priorities. Hers is an extreme case of main character syndrome, which Borgli loosely — and smugly — connects to the toxic egotism underlying various facets of modern existence.
Putting aside the film’s obnoxious social critique (a seriously unfunny gag involving a blind assistant comes to mind), there is something compelling about its particular brand of cynicism. The closer Signe gets to fame, the more her body breaks down: She can’t swallow anything without needing to throw her head back like a pelican. She also spontaneously vomits blood. This and other scenes of full-fledged body horror play out in an oddly low-key manner with little to no music. Each time we think Signe has hit her breaking point, she perseveres. It’s deadpan funny at first, but then gets disturbing. Her refusal to give up the act proves to be more sickening than her physical symptoms.
Intentionally choppy editing rhythms allow Borgli to frequently pull the rug from under us as Signe’s fantasies punctuate the events, the most obscene of her daydreams being her own funeral staged as a V.I.P. event. Eventually, these visions don’t seem all that different from Signe’s life, creating a blurred boundary that gets at the paradox at the heart of the film. To lie as compulsively as Signe does suggests a desperation to control her own narrative, which warps her relationship to her own body and identity. She is unable to grasp the seriousness of her actions — in other words, reality itself.
Sick of Myself
Not rated. In Norwegian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters.
