‘Sentimental Value' Review: Joachim Trier's Bergmanesque Family Drama Is A Sister Act With Wonderful Renate Reinsve (But Stellan Skarsgård Steals It)

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22-05-2025

At the opening of Joachim Trier's new film Sentimental Value we meet Nora Borg (Renata Reinsve), who is the epitome of an insecure actor as she attempts to do everything in her power to get out of going on stage — a bag of nervous tics as she runs around trying to quit. This, however, is opening night for the star of the play and the audience is seated. Cut to massive applause at the end of the play. Nora was a hit. All is good.
That beginning tells us this role is going to be very different than the one Reinsve took best actress in Cannes for The Worst Person in the World, Trier's beloved 2021 film that also got two Oscar nominations (for International Film and its for its screenplay). In fact she is actually quite different than the opening would have us believe, a quieter, more introspective sibling to her younger sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, a real discovery here) who is a wife and mother of a 9-year-old boy and has really switched places with Nora, now more the protector growing up with a single mother for the two of them. The generational family home is still the center of the universe for them. Their father, renowned film director Gustav Borg (a towering Stellan Skarsgård), abandoned his family, has had little contact and has a career that is now on the decline. To revive it, he chooses an inopportune moment: his ex-wife's funeral service, into which he barges uninvited. His real motive is about to be revealed.
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Gustav has written an autobiographical script that he believes is his ticket back to glory, and he is here in the family home with a screenplay he hands to Nora, a film he wants to direct the renowned stage actress in essentially as herself. He wrote it for her. But there is no love lost from her side of this estranged father-daughter dynamic, and she turns him down. So what does he do? He hires a big commercial Hollywood star, Rachel Kemp ( Elle Fanning), to take on the part of the daughter (not even thinly disguised as Nora growing up). He had met the star at a film festival featuring a retrospective and tribute to his earlier triumphs and she was looking to work with legends like him instead of in box office blockbusters. She turns up to discuss the role with Gustav.
With Kemp and Gustav now on the premises everything is thrown off kilter in the delicate balance of this family still navigating grief for the loss of the mother after a long illness, the wayward return of the bigger-than-life father, and essentially a famous movie star standing in for one sister who wants no part of it. Each of these characters, in this house with a long history, are now trying to chart a proper path for happiness in a difficult situation. Props to Jorgen Stangegye Larsen's superb production design and the just-right cinematography of Kaster Tuxen.
We see the relationship of Nora and Agnes take on new dimension with Gustav back in their lives unexpectedly, their mother gone, and everything turned upside down. The screenplay by Trier and longtime writing partner Eskil Vogt manages to traverse all of this family drama with understated quiet moments and undetected tension. There are also revealing flashbacks showing all the main characters at various ages in the house that is the only character that maintains its consistent place in time. This may be the closest Trier has gotten to the master of this kind of human conflict, Ingmar Bergman, whose films would seem to be an influence, or at the very least an inspiration, although the musical choices Trier makes would never get near a Bergman movie. The director seems to be more comfortable now with more characters at the center to play with, a certain freedom than the focus on just one main player as was the case with Reinsve's imperfect Julie in Worst Person. Those expecting a replay of that film should leave those thoughts at the door. This outing shows Trier making every attempt to go deeper below the surface (and with less fun along the way).
Watch an advance scene from the film below:
The real force of nature in Sentimental Value is Skarsgård and the film comes alive each moment he is on screen as a man who turned his back on his daughters, even his grandson, for the sake of a career. Now that it has ebbed he is trying to cash in on personal experience and his daughter for a comeback. Of course that is one way of looking at it, but for a man who doesn't wear his emotions on his sleeve it could also be a way of reconnecting in a broken relationship, making up the only way he knows how — with art. In some ways it reminds me of Jane Fonda buying the Ernest Thompson play On Golden Pond as a property for her and her emotionally distant father, Henry Fonda, to make a film version, her private goal a chance to find renewal in their own father-daughter relationship. Still you have to ask that by simply 'recasting' his daughter with a big star Gustav may be showing his true selfish self. Trier doesn't put it out there so easily. You have to play this one as it lays.
It is up to Agnes to be the adult in the room, not just for her husband and son, but for everyone including her sister who, as we saw in that opening scene, is uncertain of herself and needs some empathy, only now to receive it from a younger sibling who has turned into the wise one who can clearly see things with more clarity. Lilleaas is a revelation in this role, the real find here, as Reinsve is far more understated but nonetheless a welcome screen presence in any role she is handed (witness last year's unhinged Armand). Fanning is just great in a supporting role as the film turns to English language for her scenes, the best being a confrontation with Gustav as she explains her reluctance to take the part after all, a feeling that she may have accidentally stumbled into a family drama that is real life, not on the pages Gustav has written.
Sentimental Value is a film that sneaks up on you, more meditative than maybe expected but also one that will not leave your mind so easily. The conclusion also turns out to be one of more satisfying endings I have seen in some time, perfectly pitched and worth the wait for its human truth, and value that stops just short of sentimental.
Producers are Maria Exerhovd and Andrea Berentsen.
Title: Sentimental ValueFestival: Cannes (Competition)Distributor: NeonDirector: Joachim TrierScreenwriters: Joachim Trier and Eskil VogtCast: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle FanningRunning time: 2 hr 15 mins
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