Latest news with #StellanSkarsgard
Reuters
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Reuters
Joachim Trier's 'Sentimental Value' captivates Cannes with family drama
CANNES, France, May 23 (Reuters) - Acclaimed director Joachim Trier said his new Cannes competition entry "Sentimental Value" is centred on reconciliation and family, topics the 51-year-old reflected on while working on the script with long-time collaborator Eskil Vogt. The movie also marks a reunion for Trier and his "The Worst Person in the World" star Renate Reinsve. Reinsve plays stage actress Nora, who has a complicated relationship with her estranged and past-his-prime filmmaker father Gustav Borg, portrayed by Stellan Skarsgard. Borg, a Swede, returns to Oslo, hoping to make his comeback movie and cast Nora in the lead role. When Nora refuses, Borg reaches out to young Hollywood star Rachel Kemp, played by Elle Fanning, who soon finds herself in the midst of difficult family dynamics and a challenging film set. "Since the last time I wrote a film, I've had two children, so I'm actually asking more questions about transference" and things left unspoken in a family that are then never resolved, Trier told Reuters on Friday. "How do we cope with that? How do we grapple with that, this melancholy that we have a limited time with each other and we have to accept what we get?" said Trier. "Sentimental Value" shot up the ranks of possible Palme d'Or top prize winners after it received a standing ovation lasting over 15 minutes following its premiere on Wednesday evening. Reinsve said she was happy with the film's reception considering how high expectations were after "The Worst Person in the World," which the Norwegian actor said changed her life. "I got so much confidence by doing that role, my first lead, and really being very personal and honest with that role," she told Reuters. The vulnerability shown in Trier's film strikes a much-needed chord in a tough world, said Fanning, who was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for "The Great." "It's cool to be sensitive and tender and soft, and that should never go out of fashion," she said. Borg's difficulties juggling family and a film career were familiar, Skarsgard said, as any successful actor is required to give themselves over to their project. "You cannot say, 'Well, I'll go home instead and be with the kids' because you won't be you anymore. And that's difficult if you have kids. And I have eight of them." Seven of Skarsgard's children work in the entertainment industry, including sons Alexander, Gustaf and Bill.
Free Malaysia Today
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Free Malaysia Today
Norway film starring Elle Fanning gets 19-minute Cannes ovation
(L-R) Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning, Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgard, and Joachim Trier at the screening of 'Affeksjonsverdi' at the Cannes Film Festival. (AFP pic) CANNES : Director Joachim Trier found himself crying behind the camera as he shot 'Sentimental Value', his moving new tale about a quietly fractured family that got an extraordinary 19-minute standing ovation Thursday at the end of its premiere at the Cannes film festival. 'It sounds cheesy,' he said, 'but I wept a lot making this film because I was so moved by the actors' playing members of an arty family in Oslo who cannot talk to each other despite all their supposed sophistication. 'The actors are my friends. I know that they were being halfway a character and halfway themselves. And that they were also dealing with stuff,' said the maker of 'The Worst Person in the World', which landed the Norwegian two Oscar nominations and won newcomer Renate Reinsve the best actress award at Cannes in 2021. Many critics that year said it also should have won the Palme d'Or top prize. 'We were a family too,' said Trier, rehearsing his script around the kitchen table of the beautiful old wooden home in Oslo where the film was shot, itself a character in the film. The heads that keep butting in Trier's on-screen family are the absent father, an arthouse filmmaker who has long been put out to grass, played by Swedish legend Stellan Skarsgard, and his stage actress daughter (Reinsve). 'I think a lot of families carry woundedness and grief,' Trier said. 'And talk often doesn't help. It gets argumentative. We get stuck in our positions, the roles we give each other unconsciously.' Elle Fanning a 'mensch' The bad old dynamics are changed by the arrival of a Hollywood star – Elle Fanning playing someone only millimetres from her real self – a fan of the father, who comes bearing lots of Netflix dollars to revive one of his long-stalled scripts. 'We don't get too many Hollywood stars wanting to be in small Norwegian-language films,' Trier joked. But just like her character in the film, Fanning got the part through complete fandom, flying to Oslo between shooting the Bob Dylan biopic, 'A Complete Unknown', and the new 'Predator' in New Zealand. 'I am a massive fan' of Trier, she told AFP in Cannes, where the film is in the running for the Palme d'Or. 'I think 'The Worst Person in the World' is easily one of the best films in the last decade or even longer. It is just perfect.' 'When Joachim sent me the script I read it and I was just crying and crying by the final page. It is so emotional,' Fanning added. 'It's a very personal piece for Joachim and you can just feel that rawness in it.' Trier – who comes from a family steeped in the Scandinavian film industry – admitted it is all very 'meta. You're making a film about a family with your filmmaking family. And you've got a meta Hollywood star.' But there are not that many parallels with his biological family. 'It's not like I'm throwing anyone under the bus. My whole family has actually seen the film and are very supportive,' he said. The filmmaker father, he insisted, is a mash-up of great auteurs such as Ingmar Bergman, Krzysztof Kieslowski and John Cassavetes. Trier, 51, is famous for the bond he builds with his actors and he praised Fanning as the latest member of the family. 'She is a real mensch – a really kind and collaborative, cool person,' he said. Trier 'magic' The 'magic' that Fanning said Trier creates on set comes from taking your time, he told AFP, taking on the big themes with a light, humorous touch. 'Anyone who's had experience of therapy – and I have – will know that it's about the silences and letting things arrive. Very often is also the case with actors,' said Trier. 'We had quite a few moments like that in the film actually. Renate would look at me and I look at her and I say, 'What was that? That was interesting.' And we don't talk about it anymore. 'But when people see it in editing, they go, 'Wow!' That was also the reaction of most critics at Cannes, with The Hollywood Reporter calling it 'exquisite' and Vanity Fair saying it was 'gorgeous and gripping'.' Deadline's Pete Hammond said 'Sentimental Value' 'sneaks up on you… and has one of more satisfying endings I have seen in some time, perfectly pitched and worth the wait for its human truth.'
New York Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
If This Movie Wins the Palme d'Or, It Will Extend a Staggering Streak
They sounded froggy. Their eyes were heavy. But underneath all that fatigue, it was clear that the cast and crew of 'Sentimental Value' were in good spirits during their Cannes Film Festival news conference on Wednesday. 'If my voice is a little rusty, it's because the film was apparently well-received and we had the party yesterday,' said the co-writer Eskil Vogt. Later, the actor Stellan Skarsgard's voice also faltered at the news conference. 'I was at the same party,' he said apologetically. I, too, had been to that late-night soiree, crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with people eager to celebrate the festival's biggest hit so far. Earlier that night, 'Sentimental Value' received the most supersized standing ovation of Cannes, immediately distinguishing it as one of the strongest contenders to win the Palme d'Or. And if it does take that prestigious trophy, one of the most remarkable streaks in cinema will extend even further. The film's distributor, Neon, is now angling for its sixth consecutive Palme d'Or, following 'Parasite,' 'Titane,' 'Triangle of Sadness,' 'Anatomy of a Fall' and 'Anora.' Most insiders believe the Palme could go to 'Sentimental Value,' the Iranian drama 'It Was Just an Accident' or the Brazilian entry 'The Secret Agent,' though Neon also bought the latter two films after they premiered this week, further improving the company's odds. It may help that the 'Sentimental Value' director Joachim Trier has come close to the top prize here before: His previous film, the dramedy 'The Worst Person in the World,' won the best-actress award at Cannes for its lead, Renate Reinsve. 'Sentimental Value' finds them reteaming for the story of Nora, a Norwegian stage actress who is reluctantly reunited with her estranged father, Gustav (Skarsgard), after her mother's funeral. Gustav was barely there for Nora and her sister when they were growing up, prioritizing his once-thriving career as a director. But he has come to Nora in a last-ditch effort to mend their relationship, having written a new film about his family in which he hopes his daughter will star. When Nora flatly refuses, Gustav entices an American actress (Elle Fanning) to play the lead instead. Still, as he moves back into their childhood home to begin preparing the picture, long-buried tensions between father and daughter rise once more to the surface. 'Doing this film, I was a bit shy,' Trier said at the news conference, nodding to his longtime collaborator Vogt. 'We come from kind of a punk background, Eskil and I. We were counterculture and didn't want to make soppy movies.' Though the new film isn't soppy, it is at least heartfelt. Trier said that was by design. 'Tenderness is the new punk for me,' he said to applause. 'This is what I need right now. I need to believe that we can see the other, I need to believe there is a sense of reconciliation, that polarization and anger and machismo isn't the only way forward.' Still, at least there's something of a punk element associated with the movie. At the end of her Coachella set last month, the singer Charli XCX teased that it was time to pass her Brat Summer baton to other musicians and filmmakers making new work this season. Included in that tribute was a flashing title card that read 'Joachim Trier Summer,' a phrase that Fanning embraced by wearing it on a T-shirt at the news conference. 'I was stoked that you made that!' enthused Trier. 'The problem is, I've been working so much for the last three years, I don't even know what a Joachim Trier Summer is anymore. But I'll try to have one as well.'
Asharq Al-Awsat
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Trier Weaves His Cannes Magic again with Family Affair
Joachim Trier found himself crying behind the camera as he shot "Sentimental Value", his moving new tale about a quietly fractured family that got a 15-minute standing ovation at the end of its Wednesday premiere at the Cannes film festival. "It sounds cheesy," he said, "but I wept a lot making this film because I was so moved by the actors" playing members of an arty family in Oslo who cannot talk to each other despite all their supposed sophistication, AFP said. "The actors are my friends. I know that they were being halfway a character and halfway themselves. And that they were also dealing with stuff," said the maker of "The Worst Person in the World", which landed the Norwegian two Oscar nominations and won newcomer Renate Reinsve the best actress award at Cannes in 2021. Many critics that year said it also should have won the Palme d'Or top prize. "We were a family too," said Trier, rehearsing his script around the kitchen table of the beautiful old wooden home in Oslo where the film was shot, itself a character in the film. The heads that keep butting in Trier's on-screen family are the absent father, an arthouse filmmaker who has long been put out to grass, played by Swedish legend Stellan Skarsgard, and his stage actress daughter (Reinsve). "I think a lot of families carry woundedness and grief," Trier said. "And talk often doesn't help. It gets argumentative. We get stuck in our positions, the roles we give each other unconsciously." Elle Fanning a 'mensch' The bad old dynamics are changed by the arrival of Hollywood star -- Elle Fanning playing someone only millimeters from her real self -- a fan of the father, who comes bearing lots of Netflix dollars to revive one of his long-stalled scripts. "We don't get too many Hollywood stars wanting to be in small Norwegian-language films," Trier joked. But just like her character in the film, Fanning got the part through complete fandom, flying to Oslo between shooting the Bob Dylan biopic, "A Complete Unknown", and the new "Predator" in New Zealand. "I am a massive fan" of Trier, she told AFP in Cannes, where the film is in the running for the Palme d'Or. "I think 'The Worst Person in the World' is easily one of the best films in the last decade or even longer. It is just perfect." "When Joachim sent me the script I read it and I was just crying and crying by the final page. It is so emotional," Fanning added. "It's a very personal piece for Joachim and you can just feel that rawness in it." Trier -- who comes from a family steeped in the Scandinavian film industry -- admitted it is all very "meta. You're making a film about a family with your filmmaking family. And you've got a meta Hollywood star." But they are not that many parallels with his biological family. "It's not like I'm throwing anyone under the bus. My whole family has actually seen the film and are very supportive," he said. The filmmaker father, he insisted, is a mash-up of great auteurs such as Ingmar Bergman, Krzysztof Kieslowski and John Cassavetes. Trier, 51, is famous for the bond he builds with his actors and he praised Fanning as the latest member of the family. "She is a real mensch -- a really kind and collaborative, cool person," he said. Trier 'magic' The "magic" that Fanning said Trier creates on set comes from taking your time, he told AFP, taking on the big themes with a light, humorous touch. "Anyone who's had experience of therapy -- and I have -- will know that it's about the silences and letting things arrive. Very often is also the case with actors," said Trier. "We had quite a few moments like that in the film actually. Renate would look at me and I look at her and I say, 'What was that? That was interesting.' And we don't talk about it anymore. "But when people see it in editing, they go, 'Wow!'"
Malay Mail
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Malay Mail
Elle Fanning joins most emotional film family in ‘Sentimental Value', as Cannes gives it a 19-minute standing ovation
CANNES, May 22 — Director Joachim Trier found himself crying behind the camera as he shot Sentimental Value, his moving new tale about a quietly fractured family that got an extraordinary 19-minute standing ovation Thursday at the end of its premiere at the Cannes film festival. 'It sounds cheesy,' he said, 'but I wept a lot making this film because I was so moved by the actors' playing members of an arty family in Oslo who cannot talk to each other despite all their supposed sophistication. 'The actors are my friends. I know that they were being halfway a character and halfway themselves. And that they were also dealing with stuff,' said the maker of The Worst Person in the World, which landed the Norwegian two Oscar nominations and won newcomer Renate Reinsve the best actress award at Cannes in 2021. Many critics that year said it also should have won the Palme d'Or top prize. 'We were a family too,' said Trier, rehearsing his script around the kitchen table of the beautiful old wooden home in Oslo where the film was shot, itself a character in the film. The heads that keep butting in Trier's on-screen family are the absent father, an arthouse filmmaker who has long been put out to grass, played by Swedish legend Stellan Skarsgard, and his stage actress daughter (Reinsve). 'I think a lot of families carry woundedness and grief,' Trier said. 'And talk often doesn't help. It gets argumentative. We get stuck in our positions, the roles we give each other unconsciously.' Elle Fanning a 'mensch' The bad old dynamics are changed by the arrival of a Hollywood star — Elle Fanning playing someone only millimetres from her real self — a fan of the father, who comes bearing lots of Netflix dollars to revive one of his long-stalled scripts. 'We don't get too many Hollywood stars wanting to be in small Norwegian-language films,' Trier joked. But just like her character in the film, Fanning got the part through complete fandom, flying to Oslo between shooting the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, and the new Predator in New Zealand. 'I am a massive fan' of Trier, she told AFP in Cannes, where the film is in the running for the Palme d'Or. 'I think The Worst Person in the World is easily one of the best films in the last decade or even longer. It is just perfect.' 'When Joachim sent me the script I read it and I was just crying and crying by the final page. It is so emotional,' Fanning added. 'It's a very personal piece for Joachim and you can just feel that rawness in it.' Trier — who comes from a family steeped in the Scandinavian film industry — admitted it is all very 'meta. You're making a film about a family with your filmmaking family. And you've got a meta Hollywood star.' But they are not that many parallels with his biological family. 'It's not like I'm throwing anyone under the bus. My whole family has actually seen the film and are very supportive,' he said. The filmmaker father, he insisted, is a mash-up of great auteurs such as Ingmar Bergman, Krzysztof Kieslowski and John Cassavetes. Trier, 51, is famous for the bond he builds with his actors and he praised Fanning as the latest member of the family. 'She is a real mensch — a really kind and collaborative, cool person,' he said. Trier 'magic' The 'magic' that Fanning said Trier creates on set comes from taking your time, he told AFP, taking on the big themes with a light, humorous touch. 'Anyone who's had experience of therapy — and I have — will know that it's about the silences and letting things arrive. Very often is also the case with actors,' said Trier. 'We had quite a few moments like that in the film actually. Renate would look at me and I look at her and I say, 'What was that? That was interesting.' And we don't talk about it anymore. 'But when people see it in editing, they go, 'Wow!' That was also the reaction of most critics at Cannes, with The Hollywood Reporter calling it 'exquisite' and Vanity Fair saying it was 'gorgeous and gripping'.' Deadline's Ellise Shafer said Sentimental Value 'sneaks up on you... and has one of more satisfying endings I have seen in some time, perfectly pitched and worth the wait for its human truth.' — AFP
