"Sissy" is like an Australian slasher version of "Ingrid Goes West".
It involves a young woman who is a moderately successful influencer with a brand that focuses on airy-fairy self-improvement nonsense of the kind that used to be Oprah Winfrey's stock in trade (remember The Secret?).
The young woman, Cecilia (formerly known by the nickname Sissy) has a weird, intense chance meeting with her childhood best friend, Emma. Cecilia seems totally uninterested in re-establishing this friendship, and we don't blame her: she has two hundred thousand YouTube followers, so who needs real friends? Plus, Emma seems weird and clingy.
The movie takes a bizarre gear change in the next scenes where Cecilia does decide to reunite with Emma, and a group of people who include her old childhood bully.
Immediately, the paradigm has shifted between Cecilia and Emma. Before, Cecilia didn't seem interested. Now, it's Emma.
Emma's friends bully Cecilia similarly to how they did in the copious childhood flashbacks.
They ignore her, and when she captures their attention, they attack her sense of self as someone who is valuable to her "followers", just as they attacked her as "Sissy" when she wanted to be known as Cecilia.
Eventually, the bodies start piling up, notably at first because somebody's artificial life online is threatened by reality. One of the deaths is hard to swallow. Someone drowns, in a bathtub, having their hair ripped down the plughole?
The ending reminded me of "Ingrid Goes West", which in turn, reminded me of "Taxi Driver". This society drives the main characters in each movie to unspeakable deeds, and then rewards them for these. In "Sissy" the one being rewarded is able to use the violent deaths of several people in a fabricated story that only further cements her role as an amazing wellspring of information about how to mentally survive incredible struggle.
"Sissy" is good, and its finale is impressive, but it lost some points with me due to the weird gear change at the beginning of the movie. It felt like the plot needed the movie to go somewhere the characters wouldn't realistically take it. It was a similar situation with one of the deaths. Either the plot got in the way of the characters, or vice versa.
The climax reveals what really happened between Cecilia and Emma, and it only makes the reunion between them all the more bizarre.
It involves a young woman who is a moderately successful influencer with a brand that focuses on airy-fairy self-improvement nonsense of the kind that used to be Oprah Winfrey's stock in trade (remember The Secret?).
The young woman, Cecilia (formerly known by the nickname Sissy) has a weird, intense chance meeting with her childhood best friend, Emma. Cecilia seems totally uninterested in re-establishing this friendship, and we don't blame her: she has two hundred thousand YouTube followers, so who needs real friends? Plus, Emma seems weird and clingy.
The movie takes a bizarre gear change in the next scenes where Cecilia does decide to reunite with Emma, and a group of people who include her old childhood bully.
Immediately, the paradigm has shifted between Cecilia and Emma. Before, Cecilia didn't seem interested. Now, it's Emma.
Emma's friends bully Cecilia similarly to how they did in the copious childhood flashbacks.
They ignore her, and when she captures their attention, they attack her sense of self as someone who is valuable to her "followers", just as they attacked her as "Sissy" when she wanted to be known as Cecilia.
Eventually, the bodies start piling up, notably at first because somebody's artificial life online is threatened by reality. One of the deaths is hard to swallow. Someone drowns, in a bathtub, having their hair ripped down the plughole?
The ending reminded me of "Ingrid Goes West", which in turn, reminded me of "Taxi Driver". This society drives the main characters in each movie to unspeakable deeds, and then rewards them for these. In "Sissy" the one being rewarded is able to use the violent deaths of several people in a fabricated story that only further cements her role as an amazing wellspring of information about how to mentally survive incredible struggle.
"Sissy" is good, and its finale is impressive, but it lost some points with me due to the weird gear change at the beginning of the movie. It felt like the plot needed the movie to go somewhere the characters wouldn't realistically take it. It was a similar situation with one of the deaths. Either the plot got in the way of the characters, or vice versa.
The climax reveals what really happened between Cecilia and Emma, and it only makes the reunion between them all the more bizarre.