“Requiem for Selina” on ZDF: Drama concerning the rise and fall of an influencer | EUROtoday

Girls are already studying that magnificence pays off within the truest sense of the phrase. The promise is that anybody who is gorgeous solely has to stroll by way of open profession doorways and can be joyful in love. This story additionally takes place in a Norwegian backwater the place the winters are lengthy and desires of a glamorous life are significantly seductive. So Selina (Elli Rhiannon Müller Osborne) sits on the sofa along with her good pal Johan (Oliver Sletvold Andersen), who has been loyal to her since childhood, and watches the pageant. Moved by the aesthetic splendor, Selina’s eyes fill with tears.

The 12 months is 2005. The heyday of influencers has not but arrived, there’s neither Instagram nor Tiktok. The magnificence trade will not invent the time period “baby Botox” till 15 years later, and Kim Kardashian’s Brazilian butt remains to be a great distance from being optimized. However, bloggers are more and more attracting consideration on the Internet. Selina, tragic heroine of the six-part Norwegian drama collection “Requiem for Selina” (written by Benjamin Berglund, directed by Rikke Gregersen), additionally blogs.

The outsider and daughter of a single mom has dyed blonde hair, is flat-chested and caught between self-hatred and megalomania. In her weblog referred to as Celina Isabelle, she creates a stunning life during which she additionally experiences orgasmic intercourse with Mr. M, the most well liked boy in class. Only he’s with Emilie (Lydia Winona Reibo Eare). The college’s It ladies assault Selina due to her fantasy tales. But she defends herself, writes concerning the bullying in her weblog, is interviewed on tv, and abruptly the seventeen-year-old is thought – and is showered with hate on-line. Celina Isabelle is a pretty character from the beginning.

The finest dramaturgical trick within the collection is the off-camera voice, which razor-sharply feedback on Selina’s actions. And Elli Rhiannon Müller Osborne is an occasion as Selina. She convincingly performs this bold, fame-obsessed, lonely, coke-drinking girl whose hardship hits her initially. We witness the devouring energy of being an influencer, which ends up in self-alienation. Selina strikes to Oslo and fully transforms into the fictional character Celina Isabelle. The hatred of web trolls turns into their Most worthy foreign money and brings cash into their coffers. The predominant factor is consideration. “People love to hate them,” says the voiceover.

Selina treats each centimeter of her physique as an optimization space till she seems just like the main actress in a freak present along with her silicone breasts, grotesquely injected lips and her large ass. She isn’t but Norway’s blogger queen, nor does Natalie (Mina Dale) put on the crown. While Selina celebrates a sort of white trash aesthetic, Natalie impresses along with her naturalness. She is flawlessly stunning and maximally unsexy – an influencer that moms want their daughters would comply with and never that sleazy Celina Isabelle.

One of the perfect and most revealing scenes takes place in a convention room. Men recommend that the fictional character Celine Isabelle ought to present her followers that she has a coronary heart and bears social accountability. Somewhat extra naturalness actually would not damage. What they clearly did not perceive: Celine Isabelle succeeds by way of artificiality and scandals. She herself is conscious of it. “The press only writes about my surgeries and sex, not when I write about animal welfare.” Anyone who posts a video of themselves wiggling their not too long ago operated backside can’t be seen as a reputable wallflower per week later. The message to all younger individuals who dream of being an influencer is: consider carefully concerning the position you tackle, as a result of you’ll by no means have the ability to do away with it.

Nevertheless, “Requiem for Selina” isn’t a moralizing, didactic lesson concerning the “evil” Internet. And the collection would not provide salvation by way of love both. It’s unusual that the dreamy-looking author Nikolaj (Pål Sverre Hagen) and Selina, who has by no means learn a ebook, secretly change into a pair. The second when Selina says to considered one of Nikolaj’s colleagues throughout a studying that her weblog is principally the digital equal of Karl Ove Knausgård’s literature could be very amusing. Because like Knausgård, she additionally writes about her personal life. There’s no higher strategy to sum up the chasm between Selina’s hubris and actuality. Selina has lengthy felt the vacancy.

The six-part collection Requiem for Selina runs on Tuesday, February third, from 11:05 p.m. within the ZDF media library and from 10:35 p.m. on ZDFneo.