We’re used to seeing social media stars from a particular vantage point: the ring-lit, face-on front camera of their mobile phones. Swedish writer-director Magnus von Horn’s shrewd second feature, about a fictional Polish fitness influencer, Sylwia (Magdalena Koleśnik), constantly readjusts its angle. Michal Dymek’s frenetic, often handheld camera examines Sylwia in extreme closeup, looking at her sideways and tracking her from behind. She is beautiful, adored and alone. She doesn’t have friends or sex or “eat cake”. Yet the film is not a straightforward send-up; it shows compassion for Sylwia and her search for self-definition – for her loneliness and her labour, its drudgery and its physical strain.
Von Horn understands the gap between Sylwia’s authenticity online – mediated through the safety of a screen – and the intimacy her followers feel entitled to in real life. After a video post in which she cries about being single goes viral, an old classmate opens up to her about a miscarriage, while a middle-aged man, Rysiek (Tomasz Orpinski), stalks her outside her apartment. Sylwia isn’t emotionally equipped for either.
In cinemas and on Curzon Home Cinema
