When people ask what my favourite film of all time is, I say, without hesitation, that it is Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (2021), an excruciatingly raw depiction of how it feels to be a young woman in our age of uncertainty, which is as funny as it is gut wrenching, and as beautifully shot as it is written. So when I heard that a new Norwegian romantic comedy was set to release this year in association with the same production company, and with a cameo from Trier’s favourite leading man Anders Danielsen Lie, I didn’t doubt for a second that it too would become an instant favourite of mine.

The comparison between the two films is inevitable (because of the aforementioned similarities and the unfortunate lack of exposure most cinema goers get to foreign cinema) and perhaps a little frustrating for Sick of Myself’s director Kristoffer Borgli, but it is by no means misguided. Trier’s Julie and Borgli’s Signe are both women in their twenties who are unsatisfied with their lives and relationships, feel lost and powerless in the face of their problems, and subsequently make some questionable decisions in order to rectify them. But the main difference between the two becomes obvious within the first five minutes: Signe is just so, so much worse.

We’ve all exaggerated a headache on a day when we’re in the mood for some sympathy, we’ve all embellished the details of a story to get a few more laughs out of the room, and some of us have even secretly, silently, and without ever admitting it, been a tiny bit jealous of people waking up in hospital beds to flowers and chocolates and teary eyes. It would be a little bit nice, wouldn’t it? Signe becomes a shameless manifestation of our most shameful thoughts; her unforgivable actions are simply the logical conclusion of all the thought processes that most of us have the foresight to stop in their tracks. We simultaneously see ourselves in her, and are comforted by the fact that we are not quite the same.

“But the main difference between the two becomes obvious within the first five minutes: Signe is just so, so much worse.”

Trapped in a relationship where she is barely listened to, and given no credit for the part she plays in her boyfriend’s bizarre art career, Signe begins to lash out. Over the course of the film, she progresses from faking a nut allergy in a restaurant, to intentionally making herself seriously ill, and after a while, even that isn’t enough for her. She is a narcissist, a liar, an attention-seeker, and a criminal. But weirdly enough, you find yourself rooting for her anyway. Her life is a car crash that you just can’t look away from.

The truth is that Signe finds herself, like all of us, in a culture driven solely by attention, both online and in person, and on top of that, she is sucked into the insufferably pretentious European modern art scene, where no one actually wants to be there, no one actually likes each other, and everyone just wants to be the most important person in the room. During one of many awkward dinner parties in the film, Eirik Sæther’s Thomas pleads, “I’m not going to steal all of the attention, but can I just borrow some instead?” We can’t help but ask ourselves: to what extent are Signe’s actions a product of an innate narcissism, and to what extent have they been forced out of her by an environment of vapid self-indulgence and insecurity?

Signe’s character might be easy to stop caring about if it wasn’t for Kristine Kujath Thorp’s captivating performance. Even when the film is at its most absurd, with moments of body horror, jarring dream sequences, and comedy that borders on farce, she keeps it grounded and real. We experience Signe’s world through her own eyes, but are crucially also given enough distance to see her for who she truly is. Her daydreams show us the deep-seated anxiety that underpins the way she lives her life, but her actions show us her selfish desire to manipulate that for her own gain, and to other people’s disadvantage.

“The truth is that Signe finds herself, like all of us, in a culture driven solely by attention”

Like Trier, Borgli shoots on film, amplifying the stunning and famously long-lasting Norwegian daylight that provides the backdrop for the works of both directors. Although I was left somewhat unsatisfied by the lack of a conclusive ending, Sick of Myself is almost faultless, and left me even more excited than before about the future of Norwegian cinema. This film will hold a mirror up to all the worst parts of yourself, but you won’t be able to look away.

Sick of Myself is in cinemas now.