Sick of Myself
(15) 97mins
★★★★☆
THE world is full of narcissists with a high sense of their own importance and desperate for the attention of others.
But for every Donald Trump and Elon Musk, there are also plenty that aren’t getting what they desire.
Kristine Kujath Thorp plays a narcissist not getting the attention she needs in Sick of Myself
They walk among us, working in supermarkets or cafes. Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp) is one.
As is her boyfriend Thomas (Eirik Saether), which makes them a pretty despicable, unloving couple who always want the limelight.
In this Norwegian film, Thomas finds some success as an up-and-coming artist, which is gaining him the attention and notoriety he so desperately craves.
This begins to infuriate Signe, who works in a bakery and isn’t getting the acknowledgment she wants.
After becoming a momentary hero by helping a woman who has been attacked by a dog, and then faking a nut allergy at a dinner party, she realises that being sick gets attention.
So she scours the internet for illnesses that can make her the subject of human interest and stumbles across an article about the disfiguring side effects of a dubious Russian anxiety pill.
After getting her hands on the pills, she downs them and soon the effects kick in.
Not only is Signe falling asleep while standing up, she becomes covered in horrific scars.
Her moral vacuum of a boyfriend barely notices and when she is finally hospitalised, he visits with a magazine featuring himself on the cover so she has “something to read”.
There are plenty of laughs in this very dark comedy, which is thought-provoking about the kind of humans we are all becoming.
It’s also refreshing that Signe doesn’t have the usual Gen Z tropes of being desperate for “likes” and comments on social media.
For her, it’s more about being the only interesting person in the room.
In one hilarious scene, the egomaniac couple get very turned on by describing Signe’s imaginary funeral, where there would be so many people coming it would involve a nightclub hand stamp and bouncers.
This film is not for the faint-hearted, though.
When Signe joins a modelling agency for the disabled, the tone gets a little bit too stomach-churning.
But overall, this is a slick, sick flick.
The Three Musketeers: D’Aartagnan
(15) 121mins
★★★★☆
THIS latest big-screen adaptation of the classic French novel might be the most swashbuckling yet.
With palace intrigue and religious politics, the writers have kept close to the original storyline, which will unfold over two films.
Francois Civil plays D’Artagnan in the new adaptation of The Three Musketeers
Set in 17th-century France, it follows D’Artagnan (Francois Civil) as he arrives in Paris to join the Musketeers but gets embroiled in the Cardinal’s plot to entrap the Queen (Vicky Krieps) and start a civil war between Catholics and Protestants.
Civil brings an earnest charm and sex appeal to his would-be Musketeer, and Eva Green’s femme fatale Milady is just as delicious.
But the film is most irresistible when “the three inseparables” are in on the action.
Vincent Cassel, Pio Marmai and Romain Duris are brilliantly cast as Athos, Porthos and Aramis, who are as witty as they are handy with a sword.
Director Martin Bourboulon certainly ups the blockbuster ante with refreshingly gritty action sequences to keep the Musketeers on their toes – and audiences on the edge of their seats.
All for one and one for all, indeed.
Hanna Flint
Evil Dead Rise
(18) 97mins
★★★☆☆
PREPARE to panic-buy ketchup – because this horror film must have used up the world’s supplies of fake blood.
The red stuff splatters faces, floods floors and fills a lift.
Evil Dead Rise must have used up the world’s supplies of fake blood
In the fifth Evil Dead movie an unrelenting demon possesses the residents of a block of flats after a secret tomb opens up under its foundations.
That’s the long and short of this film, which doesn’t bother with niceties such as character development.
Irish director Lee Cronin provides an antidote to the current trend for thought-provoking “elevated horror”.
The main thought this 18-certificate release provokes is – it’s a long time since I’ve seen anything this violent.
A tattoo needle attacks an eyeball, a cheese grater slices a calf and a drone’s propellers rip up a face.
While it lacks some of the humour of the 1981 original, there are enough nods to the earlier films in this franchise to make fans smile.
Personally, I prefer a story where you know enough about the characters to care when they are bumped off.
But if you want a good old-fashioned slasher to give you nightmares,
Evil Dead rises to the occasion.
Grant Rollings
