Life doesn’t always stay the same. The silly days of childhood aren’t just going to come back, especially in adulthood, when everyone is busy in their own lives, getting stressed over earning money or maintaining a family. Jennifer Cram’s recent directorial Sick Girl is all about rescuing that precious friendship, but in a very troubling way. Sick Girl is a comedy-drama that fails to provide laughs or make any sense at all. 2023’s Bottoms, despite being a high school teen drama, spoke a lot about female friendship, presenting it hilariously, while Sick Girl doesn’t take the opportunity to make the audience connect with the characters with its tedious and predictable storytelling.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In The Film?
Sick Girl opens with a young Wren and her three friends, Cece, Laurel, and Jill, going on a long ride, singing along to some tunes. As we shift back to the present timeline, we see Wren waking up on Cece’s couch as her daughter starts to annoy her. Cece was extremely irritated by her presence at her place, but for the sake of friendship, she couldn’t just ask Wren to leave. Cece and Wren’s relationship was more like a sisterly bond, as every time Wren got into trouble, Cece was the one having her back. Wren later caught up with her two other best friends, Laurel and Jill. While Laurel was a fitness freak, Jill was a mother who couldn’t accept the fact that she was aging. But both of them were so busy in their own lives that Wren never got the opportunity to hang out with them properly.
Wren used to work at a shop and wasn’t in a relationship. Moreover, having no one to give her company, she decided to have fun on her own. One day she went to a bar and got drunk like there was no tomorrow. But at the time of leaving, when the bartender asked her to pay, she hit him. As a result, she ended up in prison until Cece came to bail her out. Cece was so frustrated with cleaning up her mess that, out of rage, she told Wren that she would cancel her birthday party the next day. But even Wren knew that Cece wouldn’t do that. On the next day, at Cece’s place, when Jill, Laurel, and their families came over to celebrate Wren’s birthday, Wren began to feel left out. She could sense that everyone was busy with their phones instead of paying attention to her. Wren tried to talk it out with her friends, urging them to put their phones aside and listen to her for once, but Jill couldn’t part ways with her phone even for a second. In a fit of rage, Wren grabbed her phone and threw it on the ground, but the phone accidentally hit Jill’s son, injuring his face. Everyone around Wren started caring for the little kid while blaming Wren for her carelessness. But to save her own back and bring everyone’s attention to herself, a huge and dangerous lie spilled out of her mouth. Wren said that she was diagnosed with cancer, which changed the whole scenario in a matter of seconds.
Did Wren Tell The Truth To Her Friends?
Soon enough, Laurel, Jill, and Cece started pouring their undivided attention into Wren. She felt immensely guilty for telling such a lie, but with this excuse, she was getting everything she wanted. Her girlfriends were giving her the time she had yearned for a long time. Going out together or having a spa day—everything was making Wren feel good all over again. But her friends were worried about her, so they tried to take her to the doctor and even asked her to join a counseling group for cancer patients. Wren was forcefully sent to group therapy, where various kinds of cancer patients gathered to share their journey. There she met Leo, who was suffering from a cancerous tumor in his liver. From the very beginning, Leo could sense something was off about Wren, but he didn’t pay much attention to her. One day, when Wren’s friends took him to a clinic for some medical tests, Wren ran into Leo once again. Wren’s medical reports were normal, with no sign of cancer, so she faked having undergone an invasive medical procedure. Leo caught her in the act, but he couldn’t understand what Wren was up to. Wren offered him a lift, and the two of them became very close friends.
Wren tried to tell her friends about the fake cancer, but she failed to confront them with the truth. The lies piled up until one day, Cece organized a fundraising event for her terminal friend and also informed her parents. Wren’s parents were furious to know that Wren had cancer, and she never thought of discussing it with them. Cece announced the donations for her friend and asked Wren to talk about her feelings on stage, but after getting there, she was spellbound, as guilt and shame were boiling over inside her mind. Leo understood the case and got up on the stage to save her image. After that, when Leo cornered her to ask her why she was lying about having cancer, Wren confessed to him, saying that all she did was bring her friends back into her life as they were the only family she had. Leo, himself a cancer patient, could easily criticize her for the dirty mockery she was making out of this disease, but seeing Wren repent the choices she made, he gave her another chance.
He asked Wren to stay at her parents’ place for a few days. He told her to confine herself to her bed and take constipating medication to feel what a cancer patient felt like. Wren tried that out and soon realized how big of a mistake she had made. Although she was mustering up her courage to tell the truth to everyone, something bigger happened right away. Leo had mistakenly told Wren’s friends that she was losing her hair, which broke their hearts, leading them to shave their heads to give emotional support to Wren. Wren never wanted this to happen, but as she found Jill and Laurel had shaved their heads and Cece was on the way to becoming bald, she finally told them truth. This time, her friends had no choice other than to believe her words, which angered them to the point that they kicked her out of the house. None of them maintained any kind of communication with Wren, who was desperately trying to seek forgiveness from them.
What Happened To Leo?
In the meantime, Leo’s health condition deteriorated, and doctors said he needed a quick liver transplant. Wren, who was trying to atone for her mistakes, grabbed this opportunity to do some good in her life. She volunteered to become a donor for Leo, who had always been there by her side. As Leo’s surgery was successfully done, his health was restored. He remained grateful to Wren, who shared the same feeling with Leo.
Did Everyone Forgive Wren?
Wren wasn’t yet satisfied with her life because she had lost her friends due to the filthy lies she had told them. Therefore, she collected all the names of the people who were donating money for her treatment. Wren personally invited them all, including her parents, and organized a gathering at a hall. In front of all of them, she got up on the stage and confessed that she had lied to all of them about having cancer while she was a completely healthy person. Including her parents, everyone in the hall started despising Wren, thinking of her as a liar, but Wren promised them that she would return the donation money to everyone. As things started looking bad for Wren, her three savior friends arrived at the hall and said to everyone that Wren might have made a great mistake, but she was trying to redeem herself. Her friends, who were the most important people in Wren’s life, finally came back to her, forgiving her and providing her with another chance to prove herself. During Sick Girls ending, Wren and Leo’s friendship flourished, and it soon took a turn into a romantic relationship.
In the post-credit scene, we saw Wren and her three precious friends on a trip again. Things seemed to have been sorted out between them, but Laurel urged Wren to do one final thing to atone herself, which was to shave her hair, and probably for the sake of their friendship, Wren would agree to do that.
