Writer-director Joachim Trier and his editor, Olivier Bugge Coutté (as well as his co-writer Eskil Vogt), have collaborated on six amazing features to date (as well as quite a few shorts) including The Worst Person in the World (2021 Oscar nomination, Best Screenplay), Thelma (2017), Louder Than Bombs (2015), Oslo, 31 August (2011) and Reprise (2006).
Their latest and most acclaimed work, Sentimental Value, recently received nine Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay (Trier & Vogt), Editing (Coutté), International Feature as well as four acting nominations for Renate Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning and Stellan Skarsgård. It has the most nominations ever for a Norwegian-language film as well as the most for a Nordic film. Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander (1983), from Sweden, had held the record with six.
The film won the Grand Prix at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and garnered seven Golden Globe nominations, including Best Motion Picture Drama, Director and Screenplay, winning for Supporting Actor (Skarsgård).
Egregiously overlooked for Actor and DGA nominations the film did receive a Producer’s Guild mention and swept the European Film Awards with 6 wins: Best European Film, Director, Screenwriter, Actor (Skarsgård ), Actress (Reinsve) and Original Score. It also recently picked up eight BAFTA nominations including Best Film and Director.
Sentimental Value is a gloriously dense work with captivating performances, mining the psychological complexities of its very human characters. The narrative focuses on two once-close sisters, Nora (a beguiling Reinsve) and Agnes (Lilleaas, a revelation) who have reunited to mourn the death of their mother. Their estranged father, Gustav (Skarsgård, in an extraordinary turn), arrives at the home they were brought up in, and both must come to terms with their very different feelings towards him.
Once a revered film auteur, Gustav has been unable to get a project financed in over a decade but has written a new script and wants Nora to play the lead. Nora is a celebrated stage actress who also had a successful TV series, but her personal life is in disarray, and she has no desire to work with her father, refusing to even read the script.
Agnes, who once starred in one of her father’s acclaimed films, chose the security of a family and appears to be content.
While attending a retrospect of a WW2-themed film he made decades ago (starring Agnes), Gustav encounters Hollywood star Rachel Kemp (Fanning, luminous), who is taken with his work and agrees to play the role in his movie, which Gustav will rewrite as an American story.
The rest of the richly rewarding film follows these characters on their sometimes emotionally torturous journeys.
One of the many significant themes explored in Sentimental Value is the idea that art can heal even the deepest wounds and often bridge the most gaping of gaps.
The final scene, like the last scene in Hamnet, brings art and life and pain and healing together in such a transcendent manner it’s breathtaking to behold.
Neon released Sentimental Value in theaters in November. It is currently available on VOD on many platforms including Apple TV and Prime.
The Contending had a terrific video chat with Trier and Coutté.
