Full of emotional landmines, Joachim Trier’s complex and deeply human “Sentimental Value” is a slow, talky tale of forgiveness and communication. It digs deep into family messiness and the blurry line between art and life, and it will hit hard with those who find within it connection and meaning.
The story centers on Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård), a once-famous filmmaker trying to stage a comeback by shooting a movie in his old family home. The twist? The film is based on his own family’s painful history. It’s a move that instantly reopens old wounds with his two adult daughters, Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). Nora, a talented stage actress, initially turns down the lead role, only to find her father handing it off to a rising Hollywood star (Elle Fanning). All of this culminates in a highly awkward family reunion no one asked for.
What follows is a slow burn of suppressed emotions, half-spoken truths, and unhealed scars. The Borgs are a family with members that aren’t too keen on direct conversation. Trier cleverly uses filmmaking itself as a kind of therapy session, asking whether turning trauma into art can ever truly heal it, or if it just reopens the wound for the sake of a good story. It’s the kind of question that’ll hit especially hard for anyone creative, capturing that uneasy feeling of mining your own life (and that of your loved ones) for material.
Performance-wise, everyone brings their A-game. Skarsgård is phenomenal as a man chasing past glory, all charm and quiet regret. Reinsve once again proves why she’s one of the best actors working today. Her restrained pain as Nora says more than most scripts could. Fanning is perfectly cast as the outsider who somehow sees the family’s dysfunction more clearly than they do.
That said, the film isn’t without its flaws. It moves slowly and takes a while to find its rhythm. Some viewers will find the ending too neat, with an emotional resolution comes a little too easily by letting Gustav off the hook when you kind of want him to suffer more. If you’re hoping for clear answers or big emotional payoffs, you might walk away frustrated.
For fans of Trier’s introspective storytelling, this is him at his most mature and reflective. “Sentimental Value” is not a film you enjoy so much as one you feel, the kind that sticks in your head while quietly asking you to think about your own family, your own memories, and what we owe to the people who shaped us.
By: Louisa Moore
Screen Zealots 