Review 774: The Worst Person in the World

Don't let the title fool you, Joachim Terier's The Worst Person in the World is a life affirming 

Julie (a breakthrough performance from lead actress Renate Reinsve) is a young woman who, on the verge of turning thirty, navigates multiple love affairs, existential uncertainty and career dissatisfaction as she slowly starts deciding what she wants to do, who she wants to be and ultimately who she wants to become. 

The ironically titled The Worst Person in the World is the third film Terier's loosely connected "Oslo trilogy" (the other two I unfortunately haven't seen) and is described as a coming-of-age film for grown ups who feel like they still haven't grown up. 

Julie's two core relationships are with comic book artist, Aksel Willman (Andres Danielsen Lie) who is much older than her. Later she gate-crashes a wedding she wasn't invited to and she hooks up with barista Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), together they push the boundaries of cheating 

At its core, The Worst Person in the World is a film about the quest for love and meaning. Throughout the film, Julie wavers over artistic passions such as being medical student to studying psychology and then photography. It's a film about desire, anxiety, modern life being both very open and fluid and mobile but at the same time strangely oppressive. It's also about the different things that men and women want from relationships but also the things that people want from relationships at different points in their lives as well as the impossibility of making all these cogs tie together. It's very Woody Allen-esque in its presentation

There is a scene around halfway through The Worst Person in the World where Julie turns on a light in her's and Aksel's apartment and it's as if the whole world seems to come to stand still. Then she runs into the street completely free. It's a joyous scene where Julie feels liberated from the troubles of her meandering  It's like a rush of adrenaline in a city frozen in time, it's like Julie's love and infatuation for Eivind causes the world to stop for a few shining moments. 

It is as much a playful character study as it is a poignant and perceptive observation of a quarter life crisis. As you move towards your 30s is time already running out? Have you already met the ideal person for you? Have you met them at the wrong time in your life or the wrong time in their life? What happens when two people (in this case Julie & ) who under different circumstances would be perfectly matched seem to be existing on different timelines. 

Julie's fatal flaw is that she's uncommitted, she has aversion to seeing things through. She feels like she never sees things through in her life and her personal goals whether professional or personal or romantic are all over the place. And yet I find her to be likeable and