Childhood is hell and it can lead to traumas which follow you around for, oh, at least a decade or so, maybe much longer: we shouldn’t expect people to change all that much in that amount of time, either. That’s been the lesson in many excellent horror titles up until now and it’s been given a colourful, brutal and social media-savvy update in Sissy (2022). We start with a video from childhood, with two kids – Emma and Cecilia, or Sissy for short – declaring that they are going to be best friends forever. Uh-oh: that is almost always a portent, right? Needless to say, when we cut to adulthood, it’s a different picture – but what a picture. When things go south here, they really go south.
Cecilia (the fab Aisha Dee) is now an online influencer, preaching mindfulness and meditation to her sizeable number of followers (as well as grifting a little, too: making a few bucks is just as important as the dopamine hit of all those ‘likes’). She lives via her smartphone, not even putting it down after recording that day’s video and going to make something to eat in front of her TV. For a while, the film itself is punctuated by emojis which appear on our screen, showing us just how blended her world really is – real, but refracted. But this safe, if lonely little haven is about to get seriously disrupted. When Cecilia has to make an emergency visit to the local chemist’s for a time-of-the-month issue (notes of Carrie White here) she bumps into Emma, her old BFF – whom she hasn’t seen in a decade. Emma (director/writer Hannah Barlow) is delighted to see her, can’t wait to tell her all about her life and insists that she come along to her engagement celebration that night.
For Cecilia, the thought of rekindling the friendship feels very scary at first, but she goes along to Emma and Franny’s party anyway and, despite a few of those awkward moments she was right to dread, she does get to share some quality time with Emma, which clearly means a lot to her. Emma then invites her on her upcoming hen weekend; Cecilia is flattered, delighted even – until she scrolls through some of the likes and comments which are appearing under photos from the party. A woman called Alex has commented a few times. Alex…Alex? This immediately triggers a run of less than happy childhood memories, taking the gloss off the reunion in all sorts of unsettling ways. Worse, the hen weekend is taking place at Alex’s holiday home out in the sticks. This is a set-up which is going to really test Cecilia – or Sissy, a nickname she actually came to hate – on all those positive affirmations. Past and present begin to jar very uncomfortably together and things start to unravel rapidly, moving towards a crescendo which is by turns uncomfortable, unbearable and vicious.
Sissy is a really effective combination of familiar-feeling sources of social anxiety and a more up-to-date, relatively new array of additional ones. So the unfamiliar social circle, the awkwardness, the uncomfortable dinner, the long history of feeling excluded – those are all there, and the film builds cleverly on what is already well-established. The inclusion of social media as a plot point – how it reveals truths, hides truths, and ultimately provides another means of creating a fallible persona – is done well, with a lively but sensitive script. ‘Woke’ buzzwords meant to come from a place of deep respect for one’s fellow human beings are used like weapons here, showing that whatever the language, it can always be used for the same old, same old mean tendencies. Sure, Cecilia is an influencer, but how does this really help her, and how much can she practice what she preaches? That’s not to say that the film is always super-subtle and all in the script: some of its foreshadowing and visual clues are as bold as brass, but it all works well, forming up part of a very vivid, richly coloured and beautifully shot film. One of the cutaway scenes is to die for.
In amongst all this – as awkwardness and grievance give way to something far darker and more visceral – Dee’s performance keeps Sissy plausible and vulnerable, even from the point where she (accidentally or otherwise) takes ownership of her surroundings. The supporting cast are great too, veering in a heartbeat from what seem to be genuine moments of interest and contrition to waspish, adolescent snark. On one of the videos, the childhood Cecilia states that she never wants to grow up – she wants to stay just as she is. The film is a testament to what it means to do just that, to be forever shaped by an unpleasant past. Emma is the key to unlocking all of this, and her attempts to understand how her behaviours have affected her old friend are also enacted incredibly well; you have some sympathy with her, too, as a woman who since girlhood has just tried to please people, have a quiet life: lots of people are no worse. Sissy is a snappy, smart and well-realised examination of these social minefields, which just happens to edge into ultraviolence. In short, this film really is something, satirical and grisly by well-executed turns.
Sissy (2022) will feature at the Fantasia International Film Festival 2022 on 19th July.