“What’s the point if you can’t share it?” a fan asks fitness influencer Sylwia (Magdalena Kolesnik) in Sweat, Magnus von Horn’s wise study of tenderness and loneliness in the digital age. We, like her 600,000-strong audience, start the film studying the wellness guru’s upbeat workout routines and empowering motivational speeches, but then the plot quickly shifts: the stream ends, Sylwia is all alone, and everything is quiet. Her fans can’t see her, yet she’s still searching for companionship. The internet isn’t the enemy — her loneliness is.
“Sharing” takes on a double meaning in the film: social media lets you post every experience and thought for those who choose to follow you, yet it isn’t a fulfilling substitute for a mutual connection with a friend or a lover in real life — a life lived alongside someone else. Sylwia is caught in this dilemma: she can and will share some parts of her life with her adoring fans online, but who can she share herself with in intimate, vulnerable moments once everyone else has stopped watching?
The story rises above caricatures to offer potent and often moving commentary on the gulf between validation and affection.
Sweat could have easily demonised the internet, or those who use it as a lifeline — but the film is smarter and more sensitive than that, giving Sylwia great dimension beyond her public persona. The story rises above caricatures to offer potent and often moving commentary on the gulf between validation and affection, and the way intimacy and solitude have always been bedfellows.
It’s carried by an incandescent performance from Koleśnik, who finds balance between the peppy façade Sylwia presents in her career and the more reserved vulnerability of a woman who, away from the internet, wants to find someone who truly knows how to love her. The film juggles dramatic shifts in tone, from hedonistic parties to chilling acts of physical violence, without trivialising any emotions. It’s a dangerous tightrope to walk, risking an insensitive or invasive look at the life of a lonely woman who could just be perceived as desperate.
But following in the footsteps of a new wave of lucid, online-aware stories about internet natives, including Eighth Grade and Spree, Sweat does justice to the lonely hearts trying to find their way — both on screen and off.