Sentimental Value
The death of Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes' (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) mother brings their estranged father (Stellan Skarsgård) back into their lives. A celebrated auteur filmmaker who chose his career over his family years before, Gustav brings with him a script for his first project in 15 years which is inspired by his family's history. After his hopes to get his eldest daughter to star in the film fall through, Nora being a local stage and television actress, Gustav casts a young Hollywood actress (Elle Fanning) seeking her first serious role.
In what could easily been the fodder for lackluster comedy, writer/director Joachim Trier (who co-wrote the script with Eskil Vogt) offers a tale built on pillars of familial history and pain which are intertwined with the only language Gustav has ever really understood: film. The fourth main character in the film is the family's house, central to the best and worst moments of the Borg family which Nora's (Reinsve) childhood essay once painted as a living organism in many ways more part of her life than her father.
Artistic temperament plays a large role in the characters of both Gustav and Reinsve. Some of Nora's oddness is used for comedic effect (such as a disturbing level of stage fright) while at the same time pointing out more serious issues under the surface. Skarsgård's Gustav is an often charming, although always opinionated, artist who can only communicate to his daughter through drunken messages left on her phone or by attempting to artistically view family history through the unflinching eye of a camera.
Both are terrific here as Reinsve infuses Nora with a stubborn strength mixed with a delicate vulnerability while Skarsgård gifts the flawed man with obvious talent and charm making it hard to ever say no to him. Lilleaas' Agnes, the younger and more stable daughter, is cast in the role of caretaker and peacemaker between the other more volatile members of the family. Fanning is an interesting wrench to throw into the proceedings not as a stereotypical star (although she does get her hangers on which hardly break the mold) but instead a young woman struggling to find the role that Gustav so obviously wrote for Nora tinged with the regret and despair still trapped within the house's four walls.
Sentimental Value is a beautiful film that never gets too dark or maudlin while exploring difficult relationships among dysfunctional families and hard unspoken truths which can't be expressed (while also suggesting that neither acting nor directing is the most emotionally stable career). Although it lacks the raw emotion impact as Hamnet, it succeeds in its emotional exploration of these characters while leading us to its own catharsis at the end of its journey.
- Title: Sentimental Value
- IMDb: link
