Sick of Myself (2022)
Director: Kristoffer Borgli
Screenwriter: Kristoffer Borgli
Starring: Kristine Kujath Thorp, Eirik Sæther, Elisabeth Bech Aschehoug, Sarah Francesca Brænne, Anders Danielsen Lie, Fredrik Stenberg Ditlev-Simonsen, Guri Hagen Glans, Steinar Klouman Hallert, Andrea Bræin Hovig, Matilda Höög
Kristoffer Borgli’s Sick of Myself is more than a portrait of narcissism; it is a sharp, unsparing satire of contemporary culture’s appetite for attention, status and the romanticisation of suffering. At Cannes, Borgli noted that most characters in the film are privileged and lack genuine struggle or purpose. They scramble to be seen and validated. Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp) responds to that cultural void with the most extreme plan imaginable.
On the surface, the film’s set-up may echo recent Scandinavian dramedies about self-absorbed millennials searching for meaning, but Borgli pushes that premise into bleaker, darker territory. Signe is deliberately unlikable: a self-obsessed barista sliding toward a life of quiet mediocrity while trapped in a relationship with the narcissistic artist Thomas (Eirik Sæther), who soaks up the limelight she craves.
Signe’s hunger for recognition extends beyond her boyfriend to friends, colleagues and strangers alike. When Thomas gains modest recognition for his latest art installation, Signe is consumed by jealousy. Her resentment grows into a mission to undermine him: she belittles his success in front of friends, pointing out that his show is in a small pop-up rather than the main gallery, and taking pleasure in deflating his perceived achievements. Their relationship becomes an escalating contest of one-upmanship, driven by petty cruelities and persistent belittlement.
The couple’s vanity and pride are the only plausible reasons they remain together. Any genuine affection has long since evaporated; both are too proud to concede defeat and end the relationship themselves. To reclaim attention, Signe makes a dangerous choice—she begins using an illegal, corrosive skin treatment (the Russian drug Lidexol) that permanently damages her skin in an attempt to manufacture sympathy and regain center stage.
After waking in hospital wrapped in bandages and visibly disfigured, Signe soaks in the concern of Thomas and their social circle. Borgli has said the film takes aim at a cultural tendency to glamorise suffering; Signe weaponises pain to become more visible. Her pursuit is relentless and irrational—she never pauses to consider whether her choices are sensible. That disquieting refusal to self-reflect makes some of the film’s darker moments hard to laugh at, even as the satire continually pushes into grotesque territory.
Kristine Kujath Thorp delivers a riveting, uncomfortable performance: her gradual descent into extreme measures reads at times as painfully relatable and at other times as disturbingly unhinged. The character’s transformation becomes increasingly erratic, and what begins as biting comedy slowly gives way to a disquieting drama. By the film’s latter stages, the humor subsides as the reality of Signe’s self-inflicted catastrophe becomes shockingly grim.
Makeup and prosthetics, overseen by Izzi Galindo, render Kujath Thorp almost unrecognisable. The physical alterations underline Signe’s sacrifice of bodily integrity in pursuit of attention, creating moments of body-horror that would be at home alongside the work of celebrated directors in that space, such as Julia Ducournau and David Cronenberg. Yet Borgli’s aim is not gratuitous grotesquery: it is to reveal the extreme lengths someone might travel to secure validation in a culture that rewards victimhood and spectacle.
At its core, Sick of Myself is a study in self-destruction driven by social competition and fragile identity. Signe engineers her own ruin, convinced that suffering will translate into meaning, fame or artistic immortality. The film’s satire is sharp because it links this personal collapse to broader social trends—the commodification of pain, the hunger for audience engagement, and the alarming prestige sometimes attached to being a victim.
Borgli has described his approach as seriously committed to comedy while remaining aware of its darker undertones. That balance—equal parts satire, discomfort and bleak humour—defines the film’s tone. It provokes laughter, then shame, and finally an uneasy silence as the consequences of Signe’s choices fully settle in.
Ultimately, Sick of Myself offers a brutal caricature of contemporary millennial values and the cultural incentives that elevate self-victimisation to a form of currency. It’s an unsettling, provocative film that leaves its audience reflecting on the ethics of attention and the dangers of seeking worth through spectacle.
Score: 18/24
Written by Jake Gill
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