Over a delicately structured, Mike Mills-ian montage of Nora Berg’s (Renate Reinsve) personal heritage––30-odd years of an Oslo native’s existence relayed in a sparse collection of seminal moments, feelings, and thoughts, then layered into the lives and characteristics of those that preceded her––the wizened voice of a grandmother ushers us into Sentimental Value, Joachim Trier’s intergenerational drama about processing (if not healing) family trauma through art.
The Norwegian filmmaker that finally made global waves with his fifth, most expressive feature to date, The Worst Person in the World, has a keen ability to unpack the shame, bitterness, and particular psychological paralyses handed down by our parents and passed along to our children. With Value he dials back style flourishes, stripping away the zip and verve that defined Worst Person in order to mine interiors of both the individual and collective family unit with unblinking sincerity.
Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård) is the type of father who abandons his family for a film-directing career when his two daughters are young and most in need. As an absent grandpa, he’s the type that gifts his 10-year-old grandson DVD copies of Irréversible and The Piano Teacher to teach everything there is to know about women. (His chuckle suggests it’s all a bit, but we also know he means it.) It’s Sentimental Value‘s second reference to Haneke after a gaping crack in the drywall––a replica of the Caché poster gash that so astutely communicated the depraved voyeurism at the heart of Haneke’s media-incisive masterpiece––backdropping the title card. The thematic reference is felt as soon as Gustav and Nora reunite.
Gustav is also the shameless brand of Royal Tenenbaum that comes back when he suddenly has a brilliant, selfish idea. To boost his waning career, the auteur has written a comeback project for himself to direct: an unflinching look at his mother’s tragic life, which she took in the house in which both Gustav and his daughters were raised. (Horrific experiences under Nazi rule never left her.) To make it even more lecherous on his family, he wants Nora––who he’s never cast––to play his mother, a twisted, voyeuristic request for someone who refused to watch his own daughter grow up.
Semi-following in the footsteps of her father but doing everything she can to carve her own path, Nora is a renowned theatre performer who’s found parallel success in TV while staying out of the film business altogether. Nora’s sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) never pursued an acting career, but she’s known by Borg-heads as the little girl in the final shot of one of his most iconic films, a gripping concentration camp escape scene dangled in front of us mid-film without the rest of the context.
Nora doesn’t even think about it. “No.” She hasn’t seen her father in years, and his reemergence after the passing of the girls’ mother is not appreciated. It adds salt to the wound when they learn Gustav still owns the house and plans to use it for the shoot. The assumption at first, rightly so, is that the only trick up Gustav’s sleeve is self-promotion––that he’ll once again hang his daughter out to dry as soon as it’s over and he’s back on top. Alas, Trier’s deft unweaving of the family’s history reveals something much different: a jungle-thick emotional exploration of the girls, their father, and their shared lineage.
Borg, the professional that he is, doesn’t explain that. Instead he takes no for an answer, respects his daughter’s boundaries, and––much to Nora’s stubborn, hidden disapproval––hires A-lister Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning giving a wonderfully balanced artist-celebrity glimpse into the process of developing character for heavy, dramatic features). Whether she will overcome her pride and somehow participate in her father’s project (if that’s even an option) or leave things fractured, an earned response to her desertion becomes the tension of this film.
Like all of Trier’s features, Sentimental Value is co-written by Eskil Vogt. Their screenplay is magnetic in how it draws viewers towards something so mundane without ever saying too little or too much. It’s a talky film; that’s not typically a compliment, but here the talking is a treat, and one that could help any viewer unpack some of their own family trauma. The talking could, in fact, go on much longer. The characters are so fleshed-out, the diction so lived-in, the backstories and present stories so engaging. Their conversations seem less like scripted scenes than real moments lucky to have been captured.
In creating a relatively small and recognizable film that can feel revelatory, Trier shows sleight of hand that could only belong to a young veteran at the height of his career. A weightless score from Hania Rani and elegant cinematography from DP Kasper Tuxen tell the story. Every frame and composed piece works in utter harmony to unveil a little more of the sheet-cake-dense narrative. 19 years and six features into his career, Trier has proven himself a sure-fire force both in the industry at large and among the subsect of filmmakers who have earned freedom to take the auteur route. Ample credit for that immersion is due to the performances.
Skarsgård fills the “despicable genius father” type to a tee, playing on both the sickening villainy he’s embodied throughout his career and his profound ability to soften into someone, it turns out, is far more approachable and genuine than they seemed. For the first time, Anders Danielsen Lie, the lead of Trier’s first two films and heartbreaking half of Julie’s life in Worst Person, takes on a much smaller role. He missed a couple of Trier’s movies, but whenever he’s been in them, he’s been a main player. Here, foreshadowing his lightness in the story, we meet him almost in jest, as Nora spirals into a panic attack just before she’s set to lead A Doll’s House for a sold-out crowd in Norway’s biggest theater. Needing to already be onstage, she pleads for some quick sex––or, if he can’t do that, a slap in the face to eviscerate her nerves.
Per said scene––her hilarious opening and one of the hardest to forget––Reinsve is the main event. She and Trier have a filmmaking chemistry for the history books. Like Julie in Worst Person, Nora is so real you could almost invite her over. Brimming with life, she’s a fresh new iteration of the modern, arts-minded Norwegian thirtysomething Trier has chronicled throughout his career, as unintentionally funny as she is intentionally frustrating, as real and lovable as she is sheltered from family trauma that still haunts her and her sister (or what they understand of it at least). You won’t want to miss her.
Sentimental Value premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and will be released by NEON.
