SENTIMENTAL VALUE full review

This is a rare example of the best of independent filmmaking- a Neon Film-  and everything a small film should be, a pitch perfect, intimate and a richly layered story of family, loss and how creativity can heal and bond people. In the same way that “Past Lives” took us by surprise and captured hearts, garnering bigger than expected word-of-mouth viewers and across-the-board critical acclaim, so too will “Sentimental Value.” This is Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s follow-up to his beloved and acclaimed “The Worst Person in the World” (2021). For this, he recasts Renate Reinsve in the lead. She goes seamlessly from her role as an indecisive, easily love struck 20-something year old single in “Worst Person” to a very different role in “Sentimental.” For the latter she portrays Nora Borg, an acclaimed stage actress on the verge of personal/mental crisis after the death of her mother.

The wonderful and wildly funny opening scene portraying Nora’s last minute stage fright, literally minutes before taking the stage, are the first signs of her mental state as well as of things to come. Not long after, she and her therapist sister, Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), are forced to confront pinned up emotions between each other and within themselves when their estranged movie-director father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), returns home. Gustav, is unable to grapple with his own feelings of loss of his ex-wife, their mother, and residual guilt from being the perpetual absent artist father. Instead he pens and presents a script he has written expressly with Nora in mind. She rejects it out of hand, refusing even to read it, and dismisses the notion of working with her father. Devastated but undeterred, Gustav pivots and offers the role to Rachel Kemp, a popular American movie star who is on a European press tour (Elle Fanning). The recasting pivot to Kemp unfurls its own unexpected sequence of emotional complications, most notably dashing Gustav’s hopes of reconciliation with Nora.

All the actors involved in “Sentimental Value” step up to the beauty of the Tier’s script, most notably by Reinsve who makes a complex performance seem effortless and authentic. For Skarsgard, who has had a long career of outstanding roles, this is may be his best and hopefully the one that gives him a well-deserved Oscar. Tier is clearly an actor’s director whose personal obsession over relationships, questions of life and memory translate to nuanced storytelling. That combined with unconventional techniques compared to the French New Wave masters, make his films one to watch and rewatch. “Sentimental Value” is a testament to his career maturation.

Director: Joachim Trier
Writers: Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt
Stars: Stellan Skarsgard, Renate Reinste, Elle Fanning
Country: Norway, Germany, Denmark
Language: Norwegian, English
MPAA rating: R
Runtime 2h 13m