Four years ago, the Norwegian director Joachim Trier debuted his film The Worst Person in the World here in Cannes. A funny, sad, gregarious dramedy about the dawning of adulthood, Worst Person is one of the best films I’ve seen at this festival in a long time. So Trier’s followup, Sentimental Value, was easily my most anticipated Cannes film this year. I put a lot of expectation on Trier’s shoulders—and those of the actor Renate Reinsve, who stars in both films.
That’s a dangerous thing to do. In this, though, it was rewarded. Trier has once again crafted a film that is graceful and limber, thoughtful and surprising. But he’s quieted down the tone, shifting his gaze to the interior of one family as they try to reconcile with the pains of the past. Sentimental Value doesn’t land with the same wallop as Worst Person, but it is plenty affecting in its own insightful, poignant way.
Reinsve plays Nora, a successful Oslo actor—she does big productions at the National Theater, and was on a hit TV series—who is dealing with a potent case of stage fright. It may be explained by the recent illness and death of her mother, but we get the sense that something else is also at play. Her nerves are not helped by the reemergence of her father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), a famous film director who was an unreliable presence in the lives of Nora and her historian sister, Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter). Nora, the eldest, is angrier at her dad than is Agnes—partly because Agnes played a large role in one of Gustav’s films when she was a child, and is thus more tightly bonded to him. And partly because Agnes was better shielded from the upheaval in her parents’ marriage and Gustav’s eventual estrangement. Many times, that is the blessing of the younger child.
Gustav has his own issues to contend with: an over-reliance on alcohol and the lingering heartbreak of losing his own mother, who hanged herself in the family home when Gustav was seven years old. He’s written a script seemingly inspired by those events, and he asks Nora to star in the film, his first in 15 years. Nora is appalled and bluntly rejects him, leading to Gustav finding a famous American actress, Rachel (Elle Fanning), to step in as his leading lady—and, in some senses, surrogate daughter.
Trier gently establishes all of these connections, tracing the family’s emotional journey in gorgeously staged vignettes. Some are buoyantly funny, others are prickly and sad. We learn more of the family
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