Sweat (2021)

Sweat sees Sylwia (a fantastic performance from Magdalena Kolesnik), an instagram influencer, who leads her fans in live workout sessions on a daily basis. For someone who seems to be loved by all, who lives in a lovely apartment, life must be great. But unsurprisingly, this sort of lifestyle is taking its toll on Sylwia; she realises she may have a stalker, and while this is a terrifying thought, she understands she needs to overcome her own self-obsession and step out of Instagram to address the problem. Her naval gazing life doesn’t make her a terrible person, indeed Sylwia comes across as a truly nice individual; but the foreboding presence of something that differs from her own repetitive and screen staring schedule affects her inward thinking forces her to address the real world. This is someone who can’t make a smoothie without broadcasting it live to the world, and Sylwia’s character arc is one of the years finest, as nuanced as it is intriguing. The film is shot with great effect; everything involving Sylwia’s online world is shot in close up as if to connote the tunnel vision and boxed in mindset of an influencer's world, whereas the scenes involving Sylwia’s real life happenings are shot from further back. This is wonderfully effective, throwing the viewer into both of her worlds as she herself experiences them, leading to not just one of 2021's most original films, but also probably one of its most important. It’s just a shame that some of those messages gleaned from the film won’t be seen by those who perhaps need it the most.

7.7/10