{"id":366780,"date":"2025-12-23T13:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T13:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/366780\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T13:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T13:51:07","slug":"a-moving-drama-that-lingers-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/366780\/","title":{"rendered":"‘A moving drama that lingers long’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two sisters navigate the challenge that comes with their estranged father (Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd) wanting to make a film about their private family life.<\/p>\n

Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier returns with another Scandinavian gem. While Trier\u2019s renowned Oslo Trilogy \u2014 Reprise, Oslo August 31st<\/a>, and The Worst Person In The World<\/a> \u2014 followed young adults undergoing self-discovery, Sentimental Value sees the director broaden his focus, with a tender, insightful portrait of sisterhood, reconciliation, trauma and transformation. It\u2019s about a fractured family unit attempting to heal through the power of cinema, unfolding with thorny dynamics and aching emotional resonance.<\/p>\n

\"Sentimental<\/p>\n

We first meet close-knit sisters Nora (Worst Person star Renate Reinsve), an anxious theatre actor, and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), a largely content academic historian, united in grief after their mother\u2019s death. Enter their estranged father, legendary filmmaker Gustav (Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd), who waltzes back into their lives offering a role written for Nora in a film about his mother\u2019s suicide. It\u2019s certainly not the apology the sisters were hoping for, after years of abandonment.<\/p>\n

The film-within-a-film commentary is gorgeously lived-in.<\/p>\n

So Nora refuses the role, still harbouring bitter anguish, in a scene that establishes the anchoring prowess of Skarsg\u00e5rd and Reinsve. His smug smile meets her narrowed gaze \u2014 micro-expressions that hint at years of an adversarial relationship. Reinsve continues her outstanding run of work with Trier, and Skarsg\u00e5rd\u2019s performance proves a real highlight, punctuated by playful humour (inappropriately gifting his young grandson DVDs of The Piano Teacher<\/a> and Irreversible<\/a>) and a gut-wrenching processing of trauma. This opens up something darker for them all, voiced in Gustav\u2019s devastating admission to Nora: \u201cI recognise myself in you.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Nora\u2019s rejection, Gustav finds a fan in young American star Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), who snaps up the role intended for Nora. It\u2019s here that Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt take a meta approach, delving into cinema\u2019s relationship with reality and the imagined, the lived and the reconstructed. When Rachel delivers a heartbreaking monologue scripted for Nora, it doesn\u2019t land with the necessary sincerity, and Nora must watch a stranger play a version of herself she\u2019s trying to outrun.<\/p>\n

The film-within-a-film commentary is gorgeously lived-in. Cinematographer Kasper Tuxen, meanwhile, imbues Trier\u2019s frames with a grittiness Gustav would applaud. However, there are times when the titular sentimentality is thickly lathered, where Trier\u2019s idealism about art takes over, with distractingly wistful diversions.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, overlapping notions of family, cinema and healing are neatly tied up in an arresting and heartrendingly gentle finale that will leave an ache in your chest. Stripping dialogue and editing flourishes away, Sentimental Value\u2019s final note is a showstopper.<\/p>\n

A fantastic showcase for Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd, and another strong piece from director Joachim Trier, this is a moving drama that lingers long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two sisters navigate the challenge that comes with their estranged father (Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd) wanting to make a film…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":{"0":"post-366780","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}