Sentimental Value Review

A Wounded Family Struggles to Heal Itself in Joachim Trier's Finest Work to Date

By: Marc Kozak

Sentimental Value

A Wounded Family Struggles to Heal Itself in Joachim Trier's Finest Work to Date

By: Marc Kozak

Generational trauma is a topic that has become increasingly popular in the arts, as more and more people seek to understand and deal with the kind of pain that starts near the top of a family tree and falls like rain, hitting just about every branch on the way down. I've consumed more than a few popular books and movies in recent years that tell multi-generational stories about families doomed to repeat the same cycles of abuse and misery, seemingly helpless to break away from behavior that may as well be coded into their DNA. It can often seem like there is some kind of mythic or even supernatural significance behind suffering that lasts so long. Who could blame those trapped in such a cycle for thinking that the only way out is to prune their branch from the tree entirely?

Joachim Trier's "Sentimental Value" starts with the story of a house, built in Norwegian sunshine before the World Wars, and home to many generations of the Borg family all the way up to the present day. A poetic voiceover asks if the house is like another member of the family, happier when more people are inside its walls, sadder when its inhabitants leave and never come back. We get glimpses of various Borg family members living in the house throughout time, looking out windows, stomping on floors, filling its rooms with life. But we also see a crack in its foundation, small at first, but increasingly long and jagged as time goes by.

In the present day, sisters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) wander the rooms of the house once again after the death of their mother. They brace themselves for the return of their estranged father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), who abandoned the girls and their mother years ago in order to start his career as an acclaimed filmmaker. He seems excited to reconnect with the girls, despite never apologizing or even seeming to acknowledge the fact that he was gone for so long. In fact, he plans to use the house as the setting for his new Netflix movie and hopes to cast Nora as the lead.

Nora is the far angrier of the two siblings and doesn't have a husband or a child for support like her sister does. She was already struggling with her own loneliness and the unhealed wounds that stem from her father leaving her as a child, and as such, has no desire to have any part in her father's plans. She is a fairly successful theater and television actor but struggles with any kind of emotional connection and is often felled by bouts of stage fright that lead her to ask her married co-worker to either slap or fuck her before she goes on stage. She would rather not see her father at all, but it becomes increasingly difficult to avoid him, especially when he plows forward with his movie project after managing to cast famous Hollywood star Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) as his new lead after Nora's refusal.

Trier's latest — and his first since the Oscar-nominated "The Worst Person in the World" in 2021 — is his finest work to date, an often funny and tender tale about a family that knows it's in trouble but doesn't know how to help each other escape. It's effective mostly due to the believability of its core family; Trier spends time clearly spelling out their relationships and grievances and cleverly gives them historical context with a series of quick montages or flashbacks to past generations living in the family house. Thanks to Trier and co-screenwriter Eskil Vogt's fully realized script, you can almost see the line of trauma that makes its way through time.

And once you see that line, you begin to see what Gustav (and the movie) is after. Gustav's own mother was tortured during World War II and committed suicide, an event that had a tremendous impact on young Gustav. He recognizes similar pain within his daughter Nora but doesn't know how to communicate it to someone who understandably wants nothing to do with him. It's a perfectly expressed example of how parents often are unable to show love to their children in a way that the children can recognize or even are willing to receive, and how that missed connection can lead to further resentment and anger.

And here, a beautiful example of the power of art as a way to say the things you are unable to say out loud. Gustav has written his new movie specifically for Nora, hoping to use it as a way to warn her of the dark path she is on. He begs Nora to read the script and play the lead character, an amalgamation of Gustav's poor tortured mother and Nora herself. He is worried that Nora is destined for destruction if she can't forgive her own torturer (her father) or at least allow herself to move on and open herself up to the love of others. It's a desperate plea from a father who doesn't know his daughter at all but knows from experience exactly what she is going through. The inability to bridge that gap is the crux of the story, and something that families everywhere are likely all too familiar with.

" Trier's latest is his finest work to date, an often funny and tender tale about a family that knows it's in trouble but doesn't know how to help each other escape. "

Elle Fanning is terrific in a small but pivotal role as an actress trying to fill Nora's shoes but slowly starting to recognize that she'll never be able to get the character right. She is famous for blockbuster YA movies but has always wanted to star in a movie from a "real" director like Gustav, much to the chagrin of her comically clingy agents. She pours her heart and soul into not letting Gustav down, trying out Norwegian accents and pushing herself as far as she can go, but both she and Gustav know that only Nora can really make the part sing. Stellan Skarsgård is at his best as Gustav, imbuing the character with a gentleness that you wouldn't expect from someone responsible for so much hurt. He is warm and often very funny, but clearly not exactly tuned in to the needs of others, humorously exemplified in a scene where he gifts his young grandchild a stack of profoundly inappropriate DVDs. You believe him when he says he wants to reconnect with his family, but you desperately want him to acknowledge his own part in carrying on the family's trauma, a step he seems incapable of taking.

Reinsve is even better here than she was in "The Worst Person in the World," able to effectively communicate a lifetime's worth of hurt into a single wide-eyed stare. She is asked to do most of her work without words. Watch her float through the familial happiness of her sister's household and you'll see pangs of longing in her every movement and facial expression. Her manic shenanigans amongst her theater friends are amusing to watch, but also barely mask the pain of someone who has no idea how to accept love and companionship from people who care about her. She is spiraling into a dark place, and everyone knows it — but no one knows how to help.

The final scene is an immaculately constructed piece of drama, expertly using the movie-within-movie conceit to produce a moment that takes the viewer through the full range of available emotions. It's the perfect way to show the transformative power of art and a hopeful note that suggests it's never too late to find a way to communicate with someone you love.