‘Sissy’ skewers millennial culture | SXSW review

Caption: Aisha Dee as Cecilia in SISSY | Credit: Steve Arnold ACS

Sissy follows a young influencer who has to face her childhood bully during a bachelorette weekend in the Australian bush. It doesn’t go well.

In the vein of last year’s Promising Young Woman, Sissy takes a bubblegum pink-colored satirical approach to tackle its bleak subject matter to devilishly entertaining and constantly surprising results. Paired with a star-making performance from Aisha Dee, Sissy is a multi-hyphenate genre must-see.

Sissy is playing at the 2022 South by Southwest Film Festival.

Go watch Sissy. I’m telling you this now because the fun of the movie is to watch the precarious balancing act between tones and genres that writer-directors Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes perform — and the less you know about their plan the better. Your ignorance is their weapon. But don’t worry, they’ll reward you when the movie shifts into high gear.

Still not convinced? Read on, but you’ve been warned.

The movie begins with Cecilia (Aisha Dee) staring straight into the camera with a warm sincere smile as she tells us, “I am loved. I am special. I am doing enough.” As the camera pulls out, we realize that we’re watching an Instagram Live and that Cecilia is a wellness influencer — or “mental health advocate” as she puts it. It’s easy to figure out because as soon as she’s finished with her mantra she begins to sell us on a face mask cheekily called “Elon Mask.”

It’s the perfect way to introduce us to Sissy’s hyper-stylized tongue-in-cheek world. As the live ends, the facade cracks and we see that Cecilia’s life is in a lot more disarray than the perfectly curated pastel backdrop that her live took place on. Her apartment is a mess as she obsessively watches as the likes and comments on her video pour in.

The juxtaposition between Cecilia’s online persona and her real-life one is exacerbated when she runs into her childhood BFF Emma (Barlow) — who still calls her by her childhood nickname “Sissy” — who she hasn’t seen in more than a decade. Cecilia is taken aback by the encounter but fortified when Emma is impressed by her online success and is invited to her engagement party where she is subsequently invited to Emma and her fiancé Fran’s (Lucy Barrett) bachelorette weekend at a house in the Australian bush. Unexpectedly for Cecilia, the house belongs to Alex (Emily De Margheriti), her childhood bully who also happens to be Emma’s maid of honor. Yes, it’s as awkward as you think it is. It seems that old habits die hard.

Then, things take a turn.

What begins as a satirical comedy about millennial culture quickly turns into a full-out horror-comedy slasher send-up as tensions rise to a boiling point. And when I say a slasher, I mean a slasher with bloody brutal kills that would make Wes Craven proud. It’s an unexpected turn for a movie that teases that it has more up its sleeve, but nothing as absurd as a bloody bathtub scalping by way of rejuvenating spa.

I’m going to keep details sparse about how the movie gets there. That’s part of the fun, but its themes are clear. In the same vein as Promising Young Woman, Sissy directly juxtaposes its dark subject matter with a hyper-stylized bubblegum pink-colored lens. In particular, it focuses on the millennial impulses of success, clout chasing, and the desire to be better without getting better.

Sissy is a hard movie to pin down in the same way that it’s hard to pin down any of its characters — Daniel Monks‘ Jamie and Yerin Ha‘s Tracey complete the cast. This is a movie without any real heroes. That is, except for Cecilia. Aisha Dee’s star-is-born performance keeps you completely captivated in her, even when your sympathies start to wane. By the end, Sissy will have you cheering for more carnage — and carnage it will deliver.

More movies, less problems

Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

💌 Sign up for our weekly email newsletter with movie recommendations available to stream.

Karl Delossantos

Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.