Sentimental Value (dir. Joachim Trier)

[Norwegian, 2025]

Nora (Renate Reinsve) is an acclaimed actress.  She lives in the family home which changes from traditional, dark and maximalist to sleek, pale and minimalist during the film. Which is better – messy, intricate family life or a cleaned-out refurbished freedom, with everything open to view? Nora, as a child, decided that the house was happiest when full of people, – namely her parents, her sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) (Ibsen seems to be getting a workout here) and herself.

Now that they are adult, Nora is a bit miserable. We think it’s more than just being Scandinavian. Perhaps it’s because of the affair she is having with her married coworker or because she is monumentally unfit to be a stage actress due to her crippling stage fright (rendered in such a manner that the cinema audience is amused and appalled while the audience in the film are merely bored and restive). Perhaps it’s because, until very recently, she has still been living at home with her mother. She isn’t living with Dad Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård)  because he took off years ago. At the time when Sentimental Value commences, the only reason poor sad Nora is not living with her mother is because she has just died. Mum was a psychotherapist, who worked from home, which might go some way towards explaining everyone’s problems. Although Agnes is more well-adjusted than Nora, being married (worryingly, her husband looks a lot like Nora’s forbidden beau) with a son.  However, Agnes is still a bit messed-up after having starred in one of her father’s films in her childhood.

Due to an implausible (and fixable) oversight, the property in which mother and daughters lived after Gustav left, still belongs at least in part to their father. Gustav is a cheerful, alcoholic, self-absorbed and philandering film director with whom the sisters have a poor relationship. Curiously, the daughters seem to feel no ill will or resentment toward their father when they are forced to sell the house because of his interest in it. They promptly start cleaning it up, which leads to sentimental musings and a comic moment with a vase.

Meanwhile, Gustav, a big deal in the international film scene, attends the wake (at which we are reminded that eavesdroppers hear things they wont like), then appears at a special screening of his earlier film, set in World War II (the film in which Agnes appeared). A famous American actress, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning, doing her best but miscast), admires the film and arranges to meet Gustav. There is a dawn beach scene after a night of rejoicing (one of the few silly scenes which could have been excised from this overlong but generally wonderful film). This reviewer is pleased to say though, that there is no hint of a romance between Gustav and Rachel, which she awaited with trepidation.

Gustav wants Nora to play the lead role in the movie which he has just written. He says he wrote it for her and this is where it gets confusing. The script is and isn’t about the fate of Gustav’s mother, it is and it isn’t about Nora, and it is and it isn’t about Gustav as a boy. It certainly isn’t about Agnes who isn’t the star anymore. Nora wants nothing to do with it. Rachel accepts the role but simply can’t ‘find the character’; rather like a role of hers in real life.

This is not a film with secret revelations. Everyone talks through things they have obviously been churning over for years. No-one says, “I never told you this, but…” to which another character replies, “I didn’t know that about you. Now it all makes sense!” The acting is slightly heightened, rather like an Ibsen production. The cinematography is cool and creates a sense of spareness and strain.

This is an excellent and intriguing film. Not new, not surprising, but well worth seeing. The final scenes are confusing at first but make sense gradually and are very fitting.