Returning with long-time collaborator and co-writer Eskil Vogt (who also co-wrote the entire Oslo trilogy), Joachim Trier delivers his pièce de résistance with Sentimental Value, a family drama starring a preeminent cast that includes his cinematic muse Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas. It is a film that simmers with its emotional release, producing a cathartic discharge of suppressed feelings and trauma. While the visual language employed is delicate and restrained, Sentimental Value exhibits itself as a masterwork in screenplay and stagecraft, an exquisite picture that lingers and resonates.
Sentimental Value opens with a scene featuring a century-old family home that we later learn is a house with a deeply rich anthropological history, intertwined in both the bloodline living in it and the chronicles of Norway as a nation. This is somewhat reminiscent of the opening montage of Trier’s Oslo, August 31, which features shots of Oslo city streets overlaid with voice-overs of people recollecting their memories of Oslo, establishing the city as a character in itself and a living ecosystem to stage the character’s story. In Sentimental Value, the opening features a narration recounting a child writing about what the aforementioned house would be like if it had feelings: would it be saddened by silence? Tickled by footsteps? Annoyed by noisiness? It is through this innocent childlike lens that we quickly learn of the tragedy of this family, its dysfunctional state and eventual separation of the parents. The house is an important backdrop for the events of the film and a temporal vehicle that takes the characters through an imagination of the past and present; a holy temple filled with the distant memories of their ancestors and the setting stage for the unfolding chapters of their lives.
The unfolding story follows Nora (Renate Reinsve), a famed actress in the theatre scene, and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) as they grapple with the death of their mother, which causes the return of their estranged, or to put it in more pedestrian terms, deadbeat father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård). This unwanted reunion is full of friction and words left unsaid, an incomplete painting that has left their relationships strained. As a famed auteur who has not made a feature film in over fifteen years, film director Gustav Borg hopes to make his return with a script that he gives to his daughter Nora in hopes of casting her as the lead actress, which she rejects due to her resentment over his past neglect of the two sisters after the divorce from their mother. After meeting Hollywood actress Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) in his retrospective screening in Paris, Gustav opts to cast her instead, despite his deep-seated reservations.
Joachim Trier has a certain tendency to showcase his film characters’ relationship with art and the act of creating art with the formulation of the self; to seek the answer to why we take photographs, write, or draw, while experiencing crises of identity and interpersonal relationships. His films centre their lenses on the characters, their feelings of inadequacy to confront the issues they are experiencing or a deeper existential quandary about their place in the universe. We see this since his debut feature, Reprise, a youthful drama about two aspiring novelists. In his previous film, the much-acclaimed The Worst Person in the World, the main characters all use art and writing as a vehicle of expression.
This tendency boils down to Trier’s obsession with memory and the capture of memory. Speaking with Criterion, he stated, “As a child I was obsessed with memory, and I think it coincided with the discovery of death, or that things disappear […] Also, it’s why I’m interested in cinema: it’s the art form of memory.” In the same interview, he also said, “Time and time again you get into the phenomenology of memory, like how the mind perceives the past and the present in a very jumbled way, which you can do in literature as well, but cinema has its own way of doing that. It shows you space and light and the process of that, which are fundamental elements of how humans perceive things”. A lot of his films are montage-driven, offering the audience an approximation of memory and past events. Sentimental Value is a continuation of this formulation of art and memory; the father-daughter, Gustav and Nora, both use their respective calling — filmmaking and acting — as a reconstruction of trauma and an exploration of their identity. However, this film does one thing differently than Trier’s previous works, as the art itself is a psychological anchor for the character dynamic, the rope that pulls them out of their interpersonal stagnation. In the same vein, witnessing your loved one’s art form is also like seeing them bare, naked, and skinned, revealing the inner psyche and deep secrets. Gustav and Nora, similar in personality as they are, wrestle with the cognitive block of seeing each other’s works — Gustav’s refusal to see her acting on stage and Nora’s dismissals of reading the script — they live in fear of discovering how the other side captures the same memory that they also experienced. It is through this immaculate, sophisticated character study that Trier delivers something truly brilliant with Sentimental Value.
As a director, Joachim Trier’s ability to utilise his actors in a way that feels so authentic and vivid is one of his best strengths. Gustav is a rude asshole, but one who best expresses his hidden tenderness in the films he directs. Stellan Skarsgård portrays this subtle disconnect masterfully, and his Swedish background (both in real life and in the film) in a Norwegian setting parallels the character’s trouble connecting with his daughter Nora; there is something lost in translation, despite being of the same blood and possessing similar traits. Renate Reinsve is always fantastic, and her chemistry with Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas as a sister feels real and emotionally moving. While Elle Fanning almost seems like she is playing herself in Rachel Kemp, who is practically her mirror in this film world as a famous Hollywood actress, her earnestness is important in juxtaposing her conventional acting (as in the acting that the character performs in the film) with Nora’s personal experience and why the role was initially written for her. Yet, there is also a hidden depth to Fanning’s character, one that is not as superficial as she appeared to be with her revelation that unfolds in the final chapter, one that sees Rachel as a false muse that snaps the main characters out of their emotional stupor.
In writing this review, I have had to personally cut out a lot of my more in-depth thoughts and analyses of the film in the interest of brevity (but I might explore it in a separate article). Sentimental Value is a thoroughly rich and deeply engrossing film. I have watched it twice so far, and I can see myself returning again once in a while in the future. One can appreciate art, but it is a different matter when you truly connect and relate with what is shown on screen, a testament to the power of cinema. In an event in Norway titled ‘The Sublime Image’, Joachim Trier said, “We have to believe that new images are still possible”. Sentimental Value treads familiar grounds in its exploration of familial relationships, yet it is through Trier’s repertoire — his own memory and experience — that gives birth to a new, sublime picture.
