One of the key ingredients in the recent international resurgence of Norwegian cinema was Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World, which made waves worldwide starting with its premiere in Cannes, where it won the Best Actress award thanks to Renate Reinsve’s revelatory performance, which turned her into one of the more in-demand Nordic actresses working today (through a quirk of distribution, she featured prominently in four movies that first screened in 2024, including Norway’s Oscar submission Armand). Unsurprisingly, the two have teamed up again for Sentimental Value, whose theatrical potential outside of the Nordics was probably a foregone conclusion before anyone had a chance to see it, and even more so after its Cannes debut.
Writing the script with his regular collaborator Eskil Vogt, Trier focuses on a world he knows very well: filmmaking. Although at first we enter this universe through the prism of stage acting, as Nora Borg (Reinsve), an accomplished performer, is about to make her entrance and gets bogged down by various little annoyances, hinting at unresolved psychological issues that manifest themselves through neuroses that feed her art. As it turns out, she recently lost her mother, and her childhood was not always a happy one, due to an increasingly deteriorating relationship between her parents which culminated in her Swedish-born father returning to his home country.
Then, all of a sudden, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård) returns, having decided to make his comeback as a film director after a long hiatus. Not only is he being honored with a retrospective in France, he actually has a script he intends to get off the ground. The plan is to shoot in the old family house (which he technically still owns, since there was no paperwork involved when he left it to his ex-wife), and the lead role – loosely based on his own mother – is one he wrote with Nora in mind. She turns him down immediately, having no intention of ever working with him. The project eventually turns into a Netflix-backed, English-language film starring Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), with whom Gustav bonded at the event in France.
As the border between the fictional and the personal gets increasingly thinner, Nora and her younger sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) ponder their bond with Gustav, the absent father who now wishes to reconnect with the whole family, especially his young grandson. There are clear echoes of the life of Ingmar Bergman, who was notoriously not great with his own offspring (sometimes even forgetting exactly how many children he actually had), but Trier approaches the heavier subjects with a warmer gaze, finding subtle grace notes even in the most uncomfortable exchanges between two generations struggling to find common ground after decades of estrangement (as established through voiceover, Gustav and Nora are the exact same age as their portrayers, and one can assume the same applies to the other characters as well).
The family angle and the notion of home (the title refers to the state of the house and its contents in the wake of the recent death) are central to the drama’s emotional arc, exquisitely captured by cinematographer Kasper Tuxen through a careful balance of close-ups and wider shots and a great sense of spatial awareness as the relatively humble abode becomes a character in its own right. The film never shies away from being honest about the connections it’s depicting, while also indulging in a bit of cinematic shorthand that feels wholly appropriate in the context of a story about a filmmaking family (of sorts).
In fact, there’s a whole other layer to proceedings courtesy of the film within the film, a Norwegian project directed by a Swede and produced by a Dane (Jesper Christensen), a perhaps imperceptible nuance if one is not familiar with the difference between the three languages, but nonetheless a vital one as it highlights the true nature of a lot of Scandinavian projects, often made in producing partnership between at least two of the countries (in this specific case, the actual Sentimental Value boasts Danish participation behind the scenes, but not Swedish).
The casting of Skarsgård, who often acts in Norwegian films due to the general mutual intelligibility with Swedish, is a masterstroke in that regard, as he gets to show facets of his performing personality that are not always present in his Hollywood roles (and with his friend Lars’s career potentially over due to health issues, it’s good to see he’s found another Trier who can use him to his full potential). This makes Fanning’s role especially amusing, as she gamely plays an external element whose outsider status is openly recognized, complete with jabs at American streamers and their habit of backing prestige projects that will perhaps never see the inside of a movie theater. Fortunately, this one will. And not just at festivals.
Director: Joachim Trier
Screenwriters: Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt
Cast: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning, Jesper Christensen
Producers: Maria Ekerhovd, Andrea Berentsen Ottmar
Cinematography: Kasper Tuxen
Production design: Jørgen Stangebye Larsen
Costume design: Ellen Ystehede
Music: Hania Rani
Sound: Gisle Tveito, Helge Bodøgaard
Production companies: Mer Film AS, Eye Eye Pictures, Lumen, Komplizen Film, BBC Film, Zentropa, MK Films
World sales: MK2
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition)
In Norwegian, Swedish, English, Danish
135 minutes
