REVIEW: ‘Sentimental Value’ Is A Generational Triumph

In one of the absolute triumphs of modern moviemaking, director Joachim Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt have created a masterpiece with Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi). Sisters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) are visited at their mother’s funeral by their somewhat estranged father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård). He’s come with a film script based on his own mother’s life, set and to be filmed in the same house where each of these generations of the Berg family has lived, and he wants Nora to play the lead role.

In every single way, Sentimental Value is a perfect movie. Every actor is giving the performance of a lifetime, the movie looks and sounds superb, and the slightly off-kilter structure weaves together an emotionally profound experience. It is an instant classic and will long be remembered as one of the greatest movies of its time.

When Gustav reenters Nora’s life, she is already in the midst of a personal crisis. She is a stage actor of seemingly high renown and success, but the movie finds her during a pre-performance meltdown. The way this scene is shot creates intrigue and confusion. Who is this woman? Why is she refusing to go on stage, and will the show actually go on?

Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, and Elle Fanning each give the performance of a lifetime.

But with one sharp cut to black after another, the scenes of Sentimental Value end without fanfare and jump forward indeterminable amounts of time. The cuts are jarring, reminding you that the conclusion of an episode in any character’s life might not actually be very interesting or important.

The movies cut out the fluff, and yet, the gaps in time feel eerily reminiscent of life under extreme distress. A sense of the passage of time becomes lost, and only major moments of disruption stand out.

Renate Reinsve does an exceptional job portraying the fine lines between anger and melancholy. As does Stellan Skarsgård, who gives one of his most extraordinary performances ever. An occasional disruption to the movie by a narrator details the history of the Berg family from time to time, filling in the essential family history that makes it possible to understand the cycle of generational trauma that has plagued this family.

The delicate dance between Agnes and Gustav is the all-powerful core of Sentimental Value.

Skarsgård is at once aloof, stern, loving, and a pain in the neck. He toggles between every facet of his character within moments in a given scene, whether feebly trying to reconcile with his daughters between august lectures at them and bouts of heavy drinking, or while working to help elevate the performance of the actress he hires when Nora refuses, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning). Fanning, too, gives a fantastically rousing performance as a fish-out-of-water American trying so hard to impress the storied director that is Gustav.

Everyone is dancing delicately around one another, unwilling to break the delicate peace unless they absolutely must. Agnes is the only one in the family who seems to have escaped the cycle of depression, selfishness, and lashing out that Agnes and Gustav are trapped in. She has a husband and an adorable child, who becomes the object of Gustav and Agnes’s adulation in lieu of reckoning with their own shortcomings or feelings towards one another.

The themes are so expertly soaked into every character and every step forward they take in Sentimental Value’s story. The family drama and history are broad enough that one doesn’t need a direct relationship to the subject to feel its power, but may also easily find their own distinct angle to connect on a deeper level. The family history is rugged, and the deeper the movie goes in revealing the sins of the past, the more concerning Gustav and Nora’s behavior becomes.

Sentimental Value is a powerful, emotional journey on every front.

Sentimental Value is a truly special movie. It will leave you speechless and in tears, with a final scene perfectly culminating everything—the themes, the acting, and the technical achievements. The way that it slowly unwraps the history of the Berg family while its characters slowly unravel themselves is spectacularly constructed.

The haunting hallways of their family home are touched with beauty everywhere, including the deep love between Agnes and Nora and the compassion Agnes begs Nora and their father to have for one another. Even the outsider Rachel Kemp fills the house with something special—a different perspective to help strengthen what makes this family great and point out what they cannot recognize as absurd.

Sentimental Value is a powerful, emotional journey on every front—a generational triumph of filmmaking in every regard. It is deserving of all the praise in the world for its bravery in tackling challenging subject matter without judgment and for drawing exceptional performances from every actor on screen.

Sentimental Value is playing in theaters everywhere November 21st.