Film reviews: Sick of Myself, Three Chords and the Truth, The Cost
The jealous girlfriend of a popular artist finds a way to make herself the centre of attention in Norwegian film Sick of Myself, which questions our social media obsession.
Sick of Myself (Syk pike) (MA15+)
In cinemas
★★★½
In this era in which social media and the cult of celebrity are prone to combine, the Norwegian film Sick of Myself makes a considerable impression.
In brief, it’s about a young woman who becomes addicted to being the centre of attention and uses that addiction to become a national celebrity.
Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp) lives with her artist boyfriend, Thomas (Eirik Saether) and is beginning to resent being dominated by him.
Thomas creates frankly ugly artworks from pieces of furniture purloined from here and there, and he’s starting to be recognised as a serious artist.
Signe, on the other hand, has a humble job as a barista in an Oslo cafe.
Early in the film the pair are celebrating Signe’s birthday in a high-class restaurant. Thomas orders an extremely expensive bottle of wine and the pair run off without paying for it; they think that ripping off the restaurant of well over $2000 is amusing and cool.
At this point I started reacting against the characters and the film, but they, and it, soon become a lot more interesting.
A short time later a woman is bitten by a dog outside the cafe where Signe works – she comes to the aid of the injured woman and in the process is covered with her blood.
In the eyes of those present, she’s a heroine – and the experience has a profound effect on her.
Gradually, Signe becomes addicted to being the centre of attention.
While dining with Thomas and other friends in an Indian restaurant, she fakes a nut allergy so convincingly that she becomes the focus for everyone in the room – and she loves it.
Clearly this love of being in the spotlight represents a deep-seated psychological problem, but Thomas is too self-absorbed to recognise the fact that his partner is seriously troubled.
When, via a friend who accesses the dark web, Signe obtains a supply of Russian-made medicine known to have severe side-effects, the film almost enters the realm of the horror movie, yet its weird logic is entirely convincing.
This is the second feature made by writer-director Kristoffer Borgli and once you tap into its rather perverse wavelength it exerts its grip.
Among a generally strong cast, Kujath Thorp is excellent in the challenging role of the obsessed Signe.
Three Chords and the Truth (M)
In cinemas
★★★
In Three Chords and the Truth, an Australian musical drama, Brisbane-based songstress Jackie Marshall plays the leading role in a film loosely based around her own life – “inspired by true events”, according to an opening title.
Angie Cowper (Marshall) is a troubled soul, a self-destructive woman who alienates her friends and colleagues. Her boorishness can be excused by the fact she’s suffering from cancer and has undergone a mastectomy. But she’s apparently addicted to booze and pills.
Angie is determined to record an album, but she owes money to Vaughn (Leigh Ivin), her sound recording engineer, and has alienated Rod (Timothy Blundell), the owner of the pub where she sometimes earns much-needed cash when she performs – if she behaves herself.
Meanwhile Ruby (Maisie Owens), a young woman who is also deeply troubled, has left home after her mother commits suicide. While her father (Matthew L. Heys) searches high and low for her, Ruby sleeps on the street or breaks into parked cars to find shelter for the night; one night she sleeps in Angie’s car, and Angie decides to help the girl. She invites Ruby to stay in her house and eventually teaches her how to play three chords on the guitar (“In Nashville, they say you only need three chords and the truth,” Angie tells her young protégée.)
I wanted to embrace this film, but writer-director Claire Pasvolsky doesn’t make it easy. She jumbles up the narrative to the extent that sometimes it seems as though pieces of film have been assembled at random. This makes the early going, especially, something of a challenge for the viewer; a perfectly straightforward narrative becomes needlessly convoluted.
Some filmmakers use this device and make it work well; Pasvolsky is not assured enough to tie the disparate threads together.
The film’s major strength is Marshall, who gives a brave and at times memorable performance.
The Cost (MA15+)
In cinemas
★★½
The Cost, a low budget Australian revenge thriller directed by Matthew Holmes, would be more effective if it were less brutal. The title refers to the cost on a pair of avengers, ordinary guys, who initially feel justified in their mission of retribution, until it’s too late.
The men are David (Jordan Fraser Trumble) and Aaron (Damon Hunter) who are, respectively the husband and brother of Stephanie (Nicole Pastor) who was raped and murdered by Troy (Kevin Dee). The killer was convicted for the crime, but served just 10 years in prison, which David and Aaron feel was entirely inadequate. Increasingly obsessed with revenge, the pair plot to kidnap Troy and kill him.
They manage to capture the ex-convict and bundle him into the boot of their car. As they drive by night into the forest where they have planned their retribution, they have a tense moment when they’re stopped by a traffic cop because of a malfunctioning tail-light.
When they reach the location where they have planned to punish Troy, they are disconcerted to discover that a local farmer, Brian (Grayton Watson), is working nearby. David begins to have misgivings (“I didn’t know it would be like this”).
Having established this set-up, Holmes and his co-screenwriter Gregory Moss have come to a dramatic dead end. There are some brutal scenes in which Troy is beaten by his kidnappers, but the material hardly merits being stretched out to almost two hours.
Holmes, who made an impression with his 2017 bushranger film, The Legend of Ben Hall, is good at staging action on location but, despite skilled acting and creditable photography by Cable Williams, The Cost gets bogged down in some repetitive scenes of pursuit through the forest and the theme, suggested by the film’s title, is addressed so obliquely that it hardly registers.
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