Sentimental Value, 2025.
Directed by Joachim Trier.
Starring Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning, Cory Michael Smith, Catherine Cohen, Pia Borgli, Jonas Jacobsen, Anders Danielsen Lie, Jesper Christensen, Lena Endre, Andreas Stoltenberg Granerud, Øyvind Hesjedal Loven, Lars Väringer, Ida Marianne Vassbotn Klasson, Vilde Søyland, Mari Strand Ferstad, Julia Küster, Haakon Norum Albech, Bente Børsum, Lazare Gousseau, Kirsten Kvalø, Gard Løkke, Alix Poisson, and Erling Eggen.
SYNOPSIS:
Sisters Nora and Agnes reunite with their estranged father, the charismatic Gustav, a once-renowned director who offers stage actress Nora a role in what he hopes will be his comeback film. When Nora turns it down, she soon discovers he has given her part to an eager young Hollywood star.
Even more heartrending than the complex family dynamics – not only between an estranged father to his adult daughters, but also the fact that the father is a prominent fictional filmmaker who let that career get in the way of such relationships with movies also serving as his only means of expressing feelings to them – in co-writer/director Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value (hashing out the screenplay alongside Eskil Vogt) is an overarching structure exploring the memories of all sorts in a home across generations.
When Nora was six years old, she wrote a school paper on the history of her childhood home (which is apparently so eloquently worded and succinct it puts most of American education to shame, but that’s a conversation for another time), which has seen everything from tragic suicide to celebration to parental arguing to lively outdoor gatherings. Much of this is told through appropriately dry narration and montage (with cold but impactful static shots from cinematographer Kasper Tuxen) that allow each room and even the placement of objects to seep into the mind.
As an adult, Nora (played by Renate Reinsve, previously having worked with the director on the equally absorbing look at messy dynamics in The Worst Person in the World) passes on some of that knowledge to her nephew Erik (Øyvind Hesjedal Loven), such as a stove that could be used to listen to verbal sparring downstairs. One has to bring up one of the oldest film criticism clichés in the book, noting that this home (which has its history dived into on more than one occasion following the opening sequence) is another character.
Currently a stage actress with a severe case of stage fright (Nora’s anxiety becomes so overwhelming she requires friend and stagehand Jakob, played by Reinsve’s previous co-lead and regular Trier collaborator Anders Danielsen Lie, to smack her face as some form of warped courage to get out there in front of the crowd), Nora will be the first to admit to anyone her mind is a bit messed up.
Much of that could be attributed to her accomplished but washed-up filmmaker father, Gustav Borg (a piercingly vulnerable Stellan Skarsgård), who, with regrets, hopes it’s not too late to make amends after walking out on her and her mother after a failed marriage. With her recent passing and the house potentially ready to be sold, Gustav has returned home with loaded intentions: he isn’t solely out to reconnect with his daughters or save the home and its memories, but to make a deeply personal film related to his mother’s depression and eventual suicide there, casting Nora in the role.
It shouldn’t necessarily come as a shock that Nora declines, which causes Gustav to pivot and cast a popular Hollywood actress (played by Elle Fanning) as his mother, hoping she can inhabit her and capture her spirit, pain, and beauty. Even the actress is skeptical of how this will work out, but she’s also tired of working on creatively unfulfilling projects and wants to tackle something bold. Of course, this also means she is brought into the lives of Nora and her sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), with the latter having appeared in one of his films as a child (we catch a glimpse of the ending doing a retrospect for the filmmaker, which plays into his inability to express any emotions about his family unless it’s through cinema).
Also orbiting this dense narrative is a subplot slightly too meta for its own good: the notorious control-freak filmmaker is having this project backed by Netflix, which comes with specific demands and gradually moves him away from his true artistic self. The situation is also mined for some jokes that, while funny, still feel as if the entire thread is a bit too self-aware and distracting from the multilayered familial relationships that are the actual gravitational pull to these characters and this story.
Films about wealthy filmmakers and their family problems are already sometimes a tough emotional sell, but for the most part, Joachim Trier knows that power lies in family dynamics and the sentimental value of childhood homes. He also seems to use illness as a crutch to ultimately write his characters into the places he needs them to arrive at in the story. Still, it is much more organically executed here than in his previous film.
Nevertheless, Gustav is also interested in bonding with his nephew Erik, which is both sweet and nearly disastrous (film lovers are not prepared for how hilariously inappropriate his DVD purchases for the boy are), and, perhaps inevitably, gives him the idea that the boy should be in this movie that is drawing from his life in a profoundly personal way despite insisting it’s not about this family. There is also baggage between Nora and Agnes, who perceive their father very differently, given their ages and the roles they played when growing up in this dysfunctional household.
Renate Reinsve delivers another powerful performance playing another messy woman. Still, some might not be prepared for how much of an ensemble piece Sentimental Value is, splitting time between her, Gustav, and Agnes. And while Stellan Skarsgård’s performance is also bracingly genuine and honest, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas turns in an achingly human, beautifully nuanced performance reminiscent of what elevated Renate Reinsve’s career after previously working with Joachim Trier. Sentimental Value is an immensely moving portrait of knotty familial ties and generational homes, which is heartbreaking and healing.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
