Sentimental Value

I watched 2025's SENTIMENTAL VALUE on a flight back home from my first ever trip to Norway. Appropriate as this film was produced there; its Norwegian title - AFFEKSJONSVERD.  My wife and I spent two weeks absorbing a beautiful landscape and culture.  Perhaps a primer for this film, which admittedly would've been appreciated even if we hadn't ever set foot in Oslo. The emotions and scenarios within are universal.  Familiar.  Director/co-writer Joachim Trier does tread some well worn beats, cinematic and otherwise.  

It's a drama of familial estrangement. Gustav (Stellan Skarsagaard) split from his wife when his daughters were young.   This and his successful career as a film director led to long absences.  But there he is, soon after his ex-wife passes.  There to reclaim the house of his ancestors.  Also to offer his elder daughter Nora (Renate Reinsve) a role in what is a hoped-for comeback film.  Offended, she flatly refuses.

Nora, an acclaimed stage actress who once attempted suicide, suffers frequent depression and panic attacks.  She harbors significant bitterness toward her father.  Her younger sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) has a far warmer relationship with Gustav, perhaps mainly because her young son Erik (Oyvind Hesjedal) is so fond of him.  And maybe also because as a child she played a key role in one of dad's acclaimed films. 

Gustav's new project is intensely personal.  Seemingly based on his mother, a member of the Norwegian resistance who was tortured by the Nazis and later took her own life, right in the family domicile, which had been in the family for generations.  After Nora refuses the role (without reading the script), Gustav seeks Hollywood actress du jour Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), an American who embraces the chance for a more serious part but gradually wonders if she is right for it.

I've given you the outline.  Trier and co-screenwriter Eskil Vogt do not give us another tired, dour drama of family discord.  The sort where lurid old secrets emerge, where relationships are forever fractured or severed.  There will be healing, acceptance, catharsis.  In the great Scandanavian tradition, it will not involve decibel shattering crescendoes. That also means the film will at times maintain a chilly distance.  Kind of like in Ingmar Bergman's works, which this is clearly inspired by. 

But so much of it hits. Hard. Moments that are uncomfortably relatable.  It goes beyond family dynamics.  The framework of filmmaking adds plenty of layers to themes of memory, emotional scarring, forgiveness.  Exorcising demons through art.  Life inspiring art and vice versa.  Plenty to think on.  There is even a nice, albeit brief,  swipe at Netflix and the whole streaming model.  Gustav is not a fan of the theater or T.V.  Not visual enough for him.

The actors are perfect.  Renate is having quite a career.  Skarsgaard has one of his best roles.  Lilleaas manages a difficult role, perhaps the least showy, with enviable grace and restraint.