2021’s The Worst Person in the World was a critical darling upon its release and announced writer/director Joachim Trier and actress Renate Reinsve as two talents on the rise in the film world. Their followup film has finally hit theaters and they’re accompanied this time by some notable stars.
Sentimental Value is the story of the Borg family consisting of sisters Nora (Reinsve), a Norwegian stage and TV actress and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). The two reunite with their estranged father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), a renowned director on the backend of his career, following the death of their mother. Gustav is seeking to make a comeback and offers Nora a role he specifically wrote for her in his autobiographical film. Nora turns it down, but soon discovers he’s given the part to an eager young Hollywood star Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning). In navigating her complicated feelings regarding the part, she, Agnes, and Gustav are all forced to confront their frayed familial dynamic.
When we’re shown the childhood home of the Borg sisters, we see an older home with a crack in its foundation. This is to be expected of a house that has aged, but as the story continues to develop, we come to see that the fissures in the Borg house is indicative of the stress fractures in their intrafamily dynamic. The Borgs are a family coming to terms with their frayed relationship, the impetus for which varies for each person. For Nora, her years long struggle with depression and attachment anxiety in her personal relationships, both of which we see play out onscreen, can be traced back to her fraught relationship with her father due to his abandonment of their family for her career. Agnes has been forced to play the strong sister for her sibling who had internalized all of this trauma the most while hiding her own pain. Gustav on the other hand is coming to terms with his own mortality, his own trauma over his mother’s suicide, and the effect that has had on him in addition to his lost time with his daughters.
It’s a multilayered examination of the compounding effect of family trauma and how the pains and sins of our ancestors can reverberate for decades down a family tree. Sentimental Value slowly pulls back these layers in a slow burn, methodical way that emphasizes how the veil of human emotion within a family is gradually pulled back and revealed amongst loved one rather than dramatically revealed as would be customary in a film for dramatic purposes. It makes for a bit of a tedious watch in terms of pure entertainment value, but the performances of the actors therein and the emotionality and empathy they engender within the audience seeks to make up for the lack of dramatic flair. Reinsve, Skarsgård, and Lilleaas each give highly emotional performances as a family that is seeking to come to terms with their past and strained present but are reluctant to begin the raw and unfiltered conversations that ultimately lead to healing. Reinsve and Lilleaas are pitch perfect as women whose adult lives are deeply affected by their childhood experiences, Nora still struggling with depression and relationships as mentioned earlier and Agnes being protective of her son’s interactions with Gustav due to her own relationship with her father. Skarsgård portrays a father coming to terms with his choices and their ripple effect while also battling his own fraught past with his own parents equally as powerful in both his empathetic vulnerability and regret and displaying the stubborn inability to be accountable for the effect he’s had on his daughter. It’s a delicate balancing portraying both sides and capturing that complicated humanity and his ability to perfect is why his performance will be a constant in awards discussions.
The Borgs avoid tough discussions, snipe at each other, ignore each other, and eventually explode into tears and anger on their way toward full openness and vulnerability with lends an authenticity to Sentimental Value that makes it feel less cinematic and more true to life. As mentioned above, it may be a negative for the film’s pacing, but makes for an emotional and impactful watch that will speak deeply to viewers who have had their own struggles with family ties and mental health resulting from traumatic upbringings. Sentimental Value is a film that is heavily reliant on its actors and the emotions they can stir within the audience for its reception and fittingly, the actors are the strongest element of the film. The story is straightforward and something we’ve seen before many times, but the empathetic performances contained within are what will make this a deeply affecting film for many.
Image: Mubi
