Sentimental Value Review: The Art of Broken Bonds

A Review by Kathia Woods

★★★★| directed by Joachim Trier | 133 Minutes| coming to theaters in the United States December 26

Sentimental Value by Joachim Trier is a profound look at the impossible math of family reconciliation, where decades of absence can't be made up for by a single creative act, no matter how grand. This achingly intimate drama is about Gustav Borg, (Stellan Skarsgård) a once-famous Norwegian director whose career is now on the verge of fading away, and his two estranged daughters: Nora,(Renate Reinsve )a temperamental stage actress, and Agnes, (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas)a historian who has become the family's reluctant emotional caretaker. Gustav proposes to film their grandmother's trauma during the Nazi occupation in the house where she committed suicide. He offers Nora the lead role as a way to both give her an artistic opportunity and apologize. Her refusal is what starts the action in the movie, but more importantly, it shows that her father has never learned to respect her boundaries.

The father-daughter relationship that Trier builds is in the painful gray area where love and resentment live together without a solution. Gustav really thinks that working with other artists can make up for the years he missed and that directing his daughters on camera might finally let him see them clearly. The sad thing is that he's partly right: his attention is addicting even when it's harmful. When he replaces Nora with American actress Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) and is kinder to this stranger than he has been to his kids, it hurts him all over again.

What makes the dynamic so devastatingly complex is that neither party is entirely wrong. Gustav's artistic instincts about his daughters prove unsettlingly accurate, yet Nora's rage—manifesting as stage fright and romantic sabotage—is both justified and self-destructive. Trier refuses to simplify their standoff, instead presenting a family where generational trauma flows like an unwanted inheritance.

The performances make this material something more than what it is. Renate Reinsve, who won an award at Cannes for her role in The Worst Person in the World, reunites with Trier and gives a masterclass in controlled chaos. Reinsve never lets Nora become a caricature, even though she is full of barely controlled anger. During the movie's climax, when she finally agrees to tell her grandmother's story, look at her face. You can see that Nora understands, but you can also see that she is haunted by the question of what she is sacrificing by giving her father what he wants. It's a performance that shows a lot of vulnerability and accuracy.

Stellan Skarsgård matches her beat for beat, showing that Gustav is both aware of himself and unable to change. He knows he has let his daughters down and can explain exactly how, but he still can't help but put his art ahead of their healing. Skarsgård shows Gustav's arrogance while also demonstrating how desperate he is. The protagonist is a man who is losing his importance and is holding on to his family as both a subject and his last chance to find meaning. His drunken middle finger at the family house, falling in the yard like a child throwing a tantrum, shows how pathetic and grand the character is.

Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas plays Agnes, the daughter who stayed, and her calmness is mistaken for being unaffected. The most heartbreaking part of the movie is when she goes to the National Archives to read her grandmother's torture testimony. She is trying to understand the trauma that Gustav has turned into art. Elle Fanning plays the Hollywood outsider who realizes she's been cast as a surrogate daughter. She adds humor and an outsider's perspective on the family's problems.

Trier gives his actors long takes and little music, letting silence say what words can't. Sentimental Value doesn't give you an easy way to get over something or make things right, but it does suggest that understanding, even without forgiveness, could be a kind of grace. It's a film about whether a father's belated attention can ever compensate for his original absence. The answer, given with typical honesty, is both yes and no, which makes it hurt.