A nuanced, layered, and finely acted work about art, memory, and fractured familial bonds, Trier’s latest is quietly absorbing and emotionally intelligent, centering on an absent father who is a famous auteur hoping to get his elder daughter to star in his new, personal film.
Review #3,061
Dir. Joachim Trier
2025 | Norway | Drama | 133min | 1.85:1 | Norwegian, English & French
M18 (passed clean) for some language, including a sexual reference, and brief nudity
Cast: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning, Anders Danielsen Lie
Plot: Nora, a successful stage actress, reunites with her estranged father, Gustav Borg—a once-renowned film director planning a comeback with a script based on their family. When Gustav offers Nora the lead role, which she promptly declines, he turns his attention to a rising Hollywood starlet instead.
Awards: Won Grand Prize of the Festival (Cannes); Nom. for 9 Oscars – Best Picture, Best International Feature, Best Director, Best Leading Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress (x2), Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing
International Sales: MK2 (SG: Anticipate Pics)
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Father-Daughter Relationship; Family Issues; Art & & Catharsis; Filmmaking & Acting
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Normal
Audience Type: Slightly Arthouse
Viewed: Screener
Spoilers: No
An awards season juggernaut, Sentimental Value will surely boost Joachim Trier’s profile as one of Europe’s foremost auteurs. From the get-go, he has shown an incisive and empathetic approach to exploring human relationships, be it family or friendship, notably in how he magnifies the little crises in life that bog people down psychologically.
Having seen his entire body of work so far, Trier’s first feature, Reprise (2006), is still my favourite. While he has surely developed and refined his craft and storytelling nous over numerous features, I don’t think he has made a more resonant film yet. And this is why I haven’t really fallen as deeply in love with The Worst Person in the World (2021), and now, Sentimental Value, as many critics and audiences have done.
But don’t get me wrong, Sentimental Value is a wonderful work, so nuanced and centred around richly developed characters that are backed by a very watchable cast. It is also a layered film that treats art and performance as a cathartic mimicry of life, though Trier throws some shade at theatre, television, and streaming.
“I can’t work with him. We can’t really talk.”
Filmmaking is the focus, with Stellan Skarsgård playing Gustav, a renowned semi-retired auteur who has penned a new, personal script and wants his elder daughter, Nora (Renate Reinsve), to play the protagonist. However, the problem is that they can’t really talk, as Gustav has been absent for much of her life.
Enter two other women: Nora’s sister, Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, who gives my favourite performance of the lot), who tries to act as an emotional “bridge” between them; and Rachel (Elle Fanning), a popular Hollywood star whom Gustav attempts to court as a potential replacement.
As the title suggests, Trier’s film is about both the material and intangible aspects of life that hold meaningful value for all of us—the house we grew up in, certain objects that embody the spirit of the times, the bonds (however frayed) that bind us to parents and siblings, the memories of joy and trauma, the presences and absences.
Can art heal the worst of wounds? Trier seems to suggest a Deleuzian answer—that the only way forward is to reshape scattered pieces into something unfamiliarly new.
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 