Sick

“Is it love?” asks a market trader when 16-year-old Maks (Konrad Kakol) examines a bit of jewellery, and he blushes. “Something like that."

Nothing is quite what it’s assumed to be in Agata Trzebuchowska’s achingly observant family drama, which screened at this year’s Fantastic Fest. It follows Maks and his sister, Emma (Katarzyna Lubik) – three years older and an ambitious young tennis player – who are deposited in a remote corner of Poland to take care of their grandmother (Monika Niemczyk) when no-one else in the family is available. It’s summer, the weather is fine, and it ought to be a period of relaxation – Emma’s frustrations about her sport aside – but something seems to be simmering under the surface, like a sickness in the air.

We don’t know exactly what is wrong with grandmother. She spends all day in bed, needs to be fed and washed and toileted by other people, but her body seems in reasonable condition, and a change in circumstances partway through the film may prompt you to wonder about the medication she’s being given, and quite whose benefit it’s for. The teenagers’ mother is away somewhere, working, and says she can’t help at this time, so they just try to follow instructions. They get some supervision from their uncle Szymon, who lives nearby with his family, but he may not be as trustworthy as he first appears. Maks has a lot to learn about his family, and all of it at a difficult age.

There’s a disarming ordinariness about much of the film. Maks is at a stage in life when many things are difficult to explain and change is natural, so although he’s concerned about the wellbeing of those around him, he doesn’t overthink things. Emma, meanwhile, has the sort of bitter understanding of some aspects of life that has led her to think nothing can surprise her. She responds to her disappointments by wielding power where she can. When Maks wants to watch Shrek, she suggests Emmanuelle, and tries to touch him up. At her instigation, he tries some of grandmother’s pills, with alcohol, and we enter a delirious first person trip full of discomfort, wonder and sexual confusion.

Cinematographer Maciej Edelman is equally confident with these scenes and the moments of sudden beauty which beguile both the boy and the audience, like a sunny afternoon in the garden or a game of underwater charades. As events take a more sinister turn towards the end, more consciously stylistic elements come to the fore, with the final moments being witnessed from above, as if the protagonists no longer have any real agency but are surrendering themselves to fate.

There are bold themes here for a first feature (though Trzebuchowska has, of course, lent her talents to many more as an actor). Whilst it’s thematically concerned with the blurring of boundaries, its own shifting structure and blending of genres contributes to the underlying unease. The award-winning central performances are fresh and brave, difficult material is handled with sensitivity, and it’s in the subtext that the real horrors lie.

Reviewed on: 28 Sep 2026