Review 778: Sentimental Value

An intimate, emotional and moving experience, Sentimental Value underscores its subject matter with sensitivity and powerful performances from its cast.

Nora Borg (Renate Reinsve), a successful stage actress, reunites with her estranged father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), a once renowned film director who is planning a comeback with a script based on his family. When Gustav offers Nora the lead role, which she promptly declines, he turns his attention to a rising Hollywood starlet, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), instead 

The latest effort from Joachim Trier, who previously made the wonderful The Worst Person in the World, Sentimental Value 

Not only is it a poignant and thoughtful meditation on grief, it's a film about the complexities of family dynamics, intergenerational trauma, Nepotism and the power of art.  the score by Hania Rani is beautiful  The production design is The house that Nora and Agnes grew up in is very much a character in of itself.

Renate Reinsve (who was previously in The Worst Person in the World)   Nora has managed to carve out a fairly successful career for herself as a stage actress 

Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas is a true find with a beautifully expressive face, throughout the film, you see regret, you see sadness, you see conflict, you see devotion. All of these expressions read through her beautiful face. Lilleaas brought a vulnerability and a  to the role of sister Agnes 

Stellan Skarsgård fresh off of Dune and the Star Wars show Andor delivers a performance  in the role of a complicated narcissist, he shows what 

Jasper Christensen whom you may recognise as Mr. White from the Daniel Craig James Bond films also pops up in a small but noteworthy role playing Gustav's producer Michael.