On Friday at the Angelika Film Center in New York City, I went to see Sentimental Value, a 2025 Norwegian drama directed by Joachim Trier, co-written by Trier and Eskil Vogt, centering on a family drama of an estranged relationship between an acclaimed filmmaker named Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård) and his daughters, Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). Gustav and his wife Sissel split when Nora and Agnes were young girls, and he went on to be a successful filmmaker, leaving his family behind, except when he cast Agnes as the lead in one of his films when she was a child twenty years prior.
The film opens with a narration about the house in which they grew up, which belonged to Gustav's family for generations, and the narration is from the girls' point of view, of how they felt the "belly" of the house was full when there was life in the house and play and action, and how hollow the house felt when there was misery and depression. It's a great opening that sets the mood for the film, giving a personality to the house, and how it has affected the lives of Gustav's family, like his mother, who was a Resistance fighter against the Nazis in WWII, and imprisoned and tortured for her rebellion, and the trauma led to her suicide in the house when Gustav was seven.
In the present-day, Gustav has been making documentaries and is still well-respected, but hasn't made a narrative film in fifteen years, and wrote a script with the intention for his daughter Nora to star in. Nora is a theater actress in Oslo, but struggles with stage fright and anxiety. She is also having an affair with her married costar, Jakob (Anders Danielson Lie). Gustav comes to Oslo for the funeral of his ex-wife Sissel, and after the wake, he meets with Nora to ask her to star in the script, where the script is inspired by his mother and he wants to film it in his family home, but she rejects it because he has been an absentee father and alcoholic, and is only interested in her when it benefits him and his artistry.
Gustav decides instead to hire the American actress Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), who is popular, and her involvement convinces Netflix to secure the financing. But while she is initially enthusiastic, she feels insecure about not being able to speak Norwegian for the role or do a convincing accent, is self-conscious about Gustav translating the script into English for her, and feeling like she's too American and too removed from the story to do it justice. Gustav is kind and empathetic to her, but more condescending towards his daughters and insulting them with microaggressions, like telling Nora that her internal rage prevents her from finding love.
Her sister Agnes works as a historian (side note: as an archivist myself, it did please me to see the brief work montage of her using the rolling archival cabinets and analog card catalogs to do her research work in, as well as seeing the same kind of library montage when she later researches archives about her late grandmother), and is married to Even (Andreas Stoltenberg Granerud) with a young son, Erik (Øyvind Hesjedal Loven). She is more sympathetic to her father, but when Gustav, who connects more with his grandson through films (like teaching him about filmmaking techniques with his smartphone), wants to cast him in the film, she refuses to allow it, remembering how it was fun when he doted on her when she starred in his film but he ghosted her afterwards, and she doesn't want to set her son up for that kind of disappointment from Gustav.
I really liked how this film shifted between the perspectives, and gave a deeper understanding of each character, and I liked how rich it felt as a character study of a fractured and complicated family. The lead performances were excellent, and while I know that Skarsgård and Reinsve will get the majority of acting nomination attention, I really liked Lilleaas' performance as Agnes, which was more subtle and quiet as the "good" sister who isn't as explosive as her father or sister, but feels things intensely, and has her own struggles with her father. And I liked that Fanning as Rachel isn't depicted in a cruel way as a dumb Hollywood actress out of her depth, but that she really tries hard to understand the script, the character, the Oslo setting and the house, and doing her work, even while feeling like she is more of a consolation prize to the director for the role than who he really wanted.
This is a really great film, especially as a follow-up to Trier's outstanding 2021 film The Worst Person in the World, also starring Reinsve, and one of the best films I've seen this year.
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