Director: Joachim Trier
Starring: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning
Certificate: 15
Run Time: 133 mins

Sentimental Value is the new film by Joachim Trier and has received quite the acclaim, especially for Stellan Skarsgård’s performance. Trier reunites with Renate Reinsve, who gave the actress her breakout role in The Worst Person In The World. Reinsve plays Nora, a theatrical actress who often suffers from stage fright. Her sister, Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) is a historian and married with a son. Stellan Skarsgård plays their father, film director Gustav Borg, who divorced their mother Sissel and left Norway for Sweden to focus on his film career during their childhood. As such, the relationship between Gustav and his daughters is strained.

When Sissel dies, Gustav returns to reclaim the house. His career has been on the decline and he hasn’t made a film in 15 years. He wants to film his latest movie to be shot in the family home and for Nora to play the lead, a character inspired by her grandmother, but she refuses to read the script. So Gustav replaces her with American actress Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) and her stardom convinces Netflix to finance the project. What follows is a difficult production that brings the family closer together.

Sentimental Value is an excellent drama that maturely melds history, stardom and generational trauma with brilliant performances across the board. Trier skilfully builds the relationship between Gustav and his daughters to the point where we know what the characters think just by their facial expressions and body language, rather than by what isn’t said. This is a film about what it means to be an artist and how one can express themselves and find meaning with the parallels in their lives, while also untangling the building trauma the characters have experienced in their past. I also loved the smart smatterings of film industry criticism, such as how Netflix tends to limit theatrical releases and how Gustav looks to reunite with his preferred cinematographer.

Skarsgård is excellent and deserving of the critical acclaim he’s received as the director getting back in the saddle. He sensitively conveys his need of another hit but I also fully bought him as someone who wants to fix the familial cracks in the process, even if he clearly lacks the emotional intelligence.

But it’s Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas who are Sentimental Value‘s standouts and some of the best acting I’ve seen this year. Their characters are particularly authentic as close siblings, with both deftly portraying the cracks and ripples their tainted childhood has had on them. But the sisters are both very different from each other – Reinsve’s Nora is impulsive and vulnerable, whereas Lilleaas’s Agnes is more maternal and level-headed.

Elle Fanning is also excellent as the American actress, a figure who takes their body of work very seriously and I found her respectful process of how to really get under a character’s skin fascinating. In some ways, Fanning’s performance is the very antithesis of Natalie Portman’s brilliant turn in May December, another film about an actress who studies her subject.

The film’s technically brilliant too, lusciously shot by Riders of Justice cinematographer Kasper Tuxen who balances the almost documentary-like feel of some of the everyday life and filming scenes with several surreal and dream-like sequences. He knows when to hold onto a shot for maximum effect and there’s an interesting colour palette throughout. The film’s also complemented by a thoughtful score by Hania Rani, which never feels emotionally manipulative.

For the most part, I loved Sentimental Value – this is a very mature piece, especially from a director who is still in his prime. Like the subject matter it explores, it feels like a film a director would make at the end of their career and I can’t wait to see what Trier does next. The performances are some of the best I’ve seen all year and the film has plenty of staying power with its thoughtful themes – if anything, there might be a bit too much in this respect because certain ideas and strands aren’t as developed as others – but even still, this is a very impressive piece of work.