Joachim Trier Rejoices As Sentimental Value Passes $20M At Global B.O.

EXCLUSIVE: Joachim Trier’s buzzy awards contender Sentimental Value has surpassed $20 million at the international box office in a performance that puts it on track to push Kon-Tiki from its perch as the highest-grossing Norwegian-language film of all time.

The film has grossed $21.9 million at the global box office, per figures collated from distributors and sales agent mk2 films. It has yet to release in key markets Italy and Japan, while Neon will re-release the drama in the U.S. on January 25.

Espen Sandberg and Joachim Rønning’s 2012 Pacific Ocean adventure Kon-Tiki grossed $23.1 million overall, while Trier’s buzzy 2021 The Worst Person in the World posted a global box office of $13.1 million.

By comparison, Trier’s earlier works Reprise, Oslo, August 31st, the English-language drama Louder Than Bombs and Thelma grossed $1.2 million-$1.5 million each.

Sentimental Value stars Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas as sisters trying to reconnect with their estranged father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgärd), an egotistical director who is trying to revive his once-stellar career. Elle Fanning puts in a supporting appearance as an actress he casts in his new film.

Since premiering at Cannes in May, where it sparked a 26-minute ovation and won the Grand Prix, Sentimental Value has been on a festival mega tour, with Trier and his team now on the awards-season circuit, with the film in the running as Norway’s Oscar entry and in the wider categories.

After the Golden Globes, where Skarsgärd won Best Supporting Actor, and the National Board of Review gala, where Ibsdotter Lilleaas won Best Supporting Actress, Trier and the Sentimental Value team head next to the European Film Awards in Berlin, where the film is the front-runner.

Deadline caught up with the director in New York over Zoom ahead of a screening there Wednesday night and then a flight back to Europe.

Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve in ‘Sentimental Value’

Kasper Tuxan/Neon/Everett Collection

DEADLINE: Congratulations on the box office success. Why do you think this film has drawn a bigger cinema audience than your past works?

JOACHIM TRIER: This one seems to be the most homogeneous in the feedback I’m getting from all the different countries and cultures that I’ve have spoken to until now. I’ve done films in the past that have had different trajectories. Oslo, August 31, for example, was about the existential crisis of a man with addiction issues. In France, they only talked about the existentialism. In the U.S., they only talked about addiction.

The risk of doing Sentimental Value, which led me to say “tenderness is the new punk” in Cannes, was that I knew I was out on a limb by trying to make something lucid and simple. It’s about the fundamentals of our lives, like what is it to be siblings, family, parent, child.

Growing up in the ’90s and being a bit of an ironic guy … I was a bit scared. But I think that’s what paid off. In Norway at least, where we know most about the demographic breakdown of the audience, we have 15-, 16-year-olds on TikTok crying and sharing, and then we have old people and people in between. It’s a bigger range. The Worst Person in the World, which at the time was a big success for me, appealed more to young adults and pop culture-focused audiences, while this is wider. I think it’s because family is a more universal theme.

DEADLINE: What did you draw on for the sibling relationship — your children, your own siblings?

TRIER: I have two daughters. One of them, we had her right after I finished the screenplay and they’re the same age apart as the sisters in the film and I’m trying not to be Gustav. … I also have siblings. They’re also storytellers. My brother is a filmmaker as well, primarily in feature documentary, and my sister is a photographer and a curator in a large museum in Norway for photos. We’re interested in telling stories on a fundamental, human level. Like Joan Didion said, we need to tell stories in order to live, but then how do we negotiate being siblings from the same home and still feeling different. Without this being biographical, I think all siblings have this feeling. … That interested me as drama.

Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in ‘Sentimental Value’

Neon

I don’t make antagonists. I’m a humanist filmmaker. I come out of that tradition. I’m interested in people, even if they’re terrible to each other, like the father, who is obviously a narcissistic, avoiding man but also a human being, doing his best, grappling with a difficult childhood himself. All that stuff interests me. How can we make something engaging and dramaturgically original, in terms of story structure, out of things that are seemingly very everyday, simple, and elevate it to be cinema so it doesn’t become a chamber drama with people sitting talking around a table. I feel cinema is also pop art in that you can’t avoid being a bit catchy, but how do you take that to a more serious place?

DEADLINE: Do you think the focus on the home and questions around whether a house is a home resonated?

TRIER: To quote Hal David and Burt Bacharach, a house is not a home. Yes, this longing for connectedness is stronger in our culture than ever. We have all these mechanisms around us that are pretending that we are in communication and close, and maybe we aren’t necessarily in the same house. There’s something going on right now where we’re reckoning with a lot of disconnectedness and fragmentation of information, also in interpersonal relationships. … Since the film was released, I’ve been having conversations in which people are saying that it’s a political statement to try to be a humanist and see the other, because things are very polarized and dark, and I take that to heart. I don’t think it’s necessarily about avoiding being vocal and political and angry and sad — that’s OK, and that should happen too. I’m not diminishing that, but I’m saying that we need art that also creates hope of connectedness. I go to the movie theater to be with others.

DEADLINE: Which brings us your experiences on the festival circuit over the past seven months. Outside of Cannes, are there any screenings or audiences that particularly stand out?

TRIER: The Lightbox in New York and in San Sebastian. They both had this moment when suddenly they turn on the light and you’re standing a little bit above the audience and receiving the applause. To see people’s faces, those who have been emotionally engaged, has been very moving to us. … Telluride, for the first time in my life, was very interesting. It’s such a film-savvy, isolated place, and let’s be honest, there’s a lot of pressure at that festival. It’s like a ‘Hmm, OK, now summer has settled. What are we left with?” kind of thing. But I felt that we had amazing conversations, and I was told that Oprah Winfrey supposedly wept. … That’s special for a guy from Norway going into the mountains that look kind of like Norway and having Oprah Winfrey at your movie.

DEADLINE: Sentimental Value is among a number of non-English-language films with potential to cross over as a contender in the main categories at the Oscars this year. What do you think is behind this trend?

TRIER: We don’t know what’s going to happen with Academy Awards. We’d be grateful with any nomination. I think Hollywood is not what it used to be, and everyone agrees. It’s become a more international place. The Academy has taken in members from around the world. When I grew up, I always loved, being from Europe, that Bergman, Fellini and Almodóvar … were once in a while, that a European director got nominated for best director, or screenplay or something. It it kind of made the Oscars even cooler, that they were actually considering everyone, and not just the local L.A. favorites.

But I also think what’s happening is that the films that I was inspired by a lot — The Breakfast Club, Kramer vs. Kramer, Ordinary People — these films with really amazing great performers, these humanist dramas that Hollywood used to be the best at, it’s not so easy to make in America anymore. Maybe some of us are kind of filling those spots a bit by being allowed to make personal movies on a big budget, or rather bigger budgets. Stellan said at the Golden Globes that it’s a small Norwegian film. It’s true in the context of publicity and the campaigns and everything. We are tiny compared to the studios, but we’re also at the same time shooting for 60 days and prioritizing. We’re making less money, but we’re shooting on 35 and we’re trying to create a movie like in the old days, with real attention to actors and stuff like that. I think that creates a different type of breadth. It’s a different taste that I think a lot of people are longing for that at the moment.

DEADLINE: It’s interesting that when you made your English-language debut Louder the Bombs with Jesse Eisenberg, Gabriel Byrne and Isabelle Huppert, there was a lot of talk about its international potential, but it’s Norwegian-Language Sentimental Value that has delivered your biggest global box office. The world has changed.

TRIER: Isn’t that wonderful that I can make film up the street from where I live, with actors, most of whom are local, actors like Inga, who was a tremendous discovery for me. I didn’t know her at all, and we had hundreds of people in for casting. Now she’s been considered for these big awards and getting several of them. And I think that’s kind of cool, and it’s a generous thing. I don’t think it’s only us that should be proud. I actually think that the cinema world becoming international is good for everyone.

DEADLINE: But what about the casting of Elle Fanning? Was that partly to draw in international audiences?

TRIER: No, we had this weird climate after The Worst Person in the World, sort of like, “OK, the next one, they’re probably not going to like it, because we had a success, so let’s just be hardcore and do what we want to do.” And I just wanted to work with good actors. And Elle is a good actor. That’s my most honest answer. It was fun and it was amazing, her and Stellan, but it wasn’t about speculation for international attention.

Elle Fanning at the ‘Sentimental Value’ photocall at Cannes

Kristy Sparow/Getty Images

Honestly, I’m so naive that about every level I go since Reprise. It was also internationally distributed, but as a Norwegian debutante director, I hadn’t expected that. And then Oslo, August 31st became almost a cult film in France, where it was huge success. Every time I think I’ve reached like, “Oh my God, I didn’t expect it to be big.” And now we kind of blew off the roof again.

DEADLINE: What does the box office performance for Sentimental Value mean to you?

TRIER: That people are watching in the theaters, that’s what it means. It means that someone spent their night going into a dark room with other people and hopefully felt something. And since it’s so many, some of them must have told a friend to go as well. I think that’s tremendous. I’m not one of these filmmakers who are like, “I don’t care about the audience.” I really care. I’m completely hardcore and I do my thing, but to have it seen. And what I said in Cannes, which was rather spontaneous. It wasn’t planned. After the long ovation, Thierry handed me the mike and I said, “I make films like Buñuel for my friends and tonight, I feel you’re all my friends.” … It’s almost like you can have very intimate conversations with strangers through making movies.

DEADLINE: You head off to the European Film Awards in Berlin this weekend. They’re not as big as the Oscars, but what they do mean for you? Is it important to be there?

TRIER: I think it’s great. They’ve placed it in the awards season, and here’s the thing: The critics, the awards, the ovations, the different groups that vote — all of this is a possibility for different voices to support film, and it widens the group of films that get seen. lt’s a good thing. And I think for us, the European Film Awards is going to be an exciting, fingers crossed. It gives attention to our movie, and hopefully some praise already by nomination to my cast and crew. I’m very happy about it. I somehow felt in the past they were a little bit out of sync, and this year we’ve got all the films from across Berlin through to Venice, and all the other festivals.

DEADLINE: Despite the success you’re enjoying with Sentimental Value, do you think you’ll ever be tempted to take on a bigger-budget English-language, Hollywood-style film, or are you going to stay close to your Norwegian roots and the talents around you?

TRIER: I think the latter. … I think what’s amazing — to give a bit of shout-out to Maria [Ekerhovd] and Andrea [Berentsen Ottmar], our wonderful producers, is that they have managed to create what I think is a path forward of a mixture of different investors in different territories coming together to give filmmakers final cut and control without one place taking all the risks. And I think Neon has been wonderful in America, and we have Mubi in the UK, and several places, we have MK2 doing sales, with Alexandre Mallet-Guy at Memento in France for cinema, and then we have Nordic Film in Norway. It’s a lot of different really great local companies that know their audiences, that have stepped up together to finance this film. And I think that’s a healthy system. And within that system, I can still shoot a pretty good budget movie without anyone losing. Everyone’s got money now, everyone in the group feels the film is a huge success, and no one carried the burden alone.

Joachim Trier Rejoices As Sentimental Value Passes $20M At Global B.O.

Tags: