DIRECTOR: Joachim Trier
STARRING: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgard, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning
RUNNING TIME: 2 hrs 13 minutes
LANGUAGE: Norwegian, English, Swedish, French
PLOT: Sisters Nora and Agnes are drawn back into the orbit of their estranged father, Gustav, a once-celebrated director whose charm still lingers despite years of absence. Hoping to revive his fading career, Gustav offers stage actress Nora the lead role in his long-awaited comeback film. But when she refuses, Nora is stunned to learn that her father has handed the role to a rising Hollywood star hungry for the spotlight. As filming begins, the sisters find themselves entangled not only in Gustav’s ambitions but also in the tensions stirred by an outsider suddenly thrust into the heart of their already fragile family bonds.
GENRE: Drama
FILMING LOCATION: Oslo, Norway
To check out all previous submissions for Norway, click HERE.
STARRING: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgard, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning
RUNNING TIME: 2 hrs 13 minutes
LANGUAGE: Norwegian, English, Swedish, French
PLOT: Sisters Nora and Agnes are drawn back into the orbit of their estranged father, Gustav, a once-celebrated director whose charm still lingers despite years of absence. Hoping to revive his fading career, Gustav offers stage actress Nora the lead role in his long-awaited comeback film. But when she refuses, Nora is stunned to learn that her father has handed the role to a rising Hollywood star hungry for the spotlight. As filming begins, the sisters find themselves entangled not only in Gustav’s ambitions but also in the tensions stirred by an outsider suddenly thrust into the heart of their already fragile family bonds.
GENRE: Drama
FILMING LOCATION: Oslo, Norway
To check out all previous submissions for Norway, click HERE.
FILM REVIEW:
(This review contains spoilers.)
“Why didn't our childhood ruin you?"
Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value is an expansion of the themes he and longtime collaborator Eskil Vogt have honed over the years: memory, intimacy, and the fragile bonds of family. Where The Worst Person in the World turned the lens on romantic uncertainty, this film delves deeper into generational wounds and the way artistic expression can become both a weapon and a balm. Set in Oslo, the story follows two sisters, Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), as they reconnect with their estranged father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), a once-renowned filmmaker staging a belated comeback. The setting of their family home, steeped in decades of beauty and grief, becomes the stage for a drama that is as much about memory as it is about art.
From its opening moments, Trier establishes a rhythm of intimacy and unease. Nora’s first appearance, a backstage panic attack before a stage performance, signals a character unraveling, haunted by her mother’s recent death and her father’s sudden reentry into her life. By contrast, Agnes has pursued stability, a marriage and child shielding her from the volatility that still grips her sister. When Gustav offers Nora the lead in his new film, she refuses, unable to reconcile her childhood scars with her father’s ambitions. His decision to cast an eager American actress (Elle Fanning) instead sparks a quiet storm, as familial fractures widen beneath the pressures of art, grief, and expectation.
What gives Sentimental Value its quiet force is Trier’s patient orchestration of mood and memory. Extended flashbacks of the family home, shifting across decades, blur the boundaries between past and present, while the editing punctuates moments of emotional rupture with sudden cuts to black. The soundtrack, weaving between silence and soulful tracks, underscores the tension between nostalgia and loss, filling the spaces where words fail. Trier’s storytelling resists tidy resolution, instead layering history, silence, and hesitation into a narrative that feels lived rather than scripted. In doing so, the film captures how the weight of the past lingers in the present, shaping every gesture, every decision, every silence.
At its core, Sentimental Value is about the intangible currencies we inherit and pass on, like love, resentment, forgiveness, and the meanings we attach to both homes and people. Trier suggests that sentimental value is not a measure of objects or even achievements, but of the way we remain inside one another, for better or worse. Family is portrayed not as a guarantee of comfort but as a space where old wounds and enduring affections coexist, shaping who we become. It is a film of memory and survival, reminding us that the true value of a life lies not in what we create but in how we are remembered by those we leave behind.
(This review contains spoilers.)
“Why didn't our childhood ruin you?"
Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value is an expansion of the themes he and longtime collaborator Eskil Vogt have honed over the years: memory, intimacy, and the fragile bonds of family. Where The Worst Person in the World turned the lens on romantic uncertainty, this film delves deeper into generational wounds and the way artistic expression can become both a weapon and a balm. Set in Oslo, the story follows two sisters, Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), as they reconnect with their estranged father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), a once-renowned filmmaker staging a belated comeback. The setting of their family home, steeped in decades of beauty and grief, becomes the stage for a drama that is as much about memory as it is about art.
From its opening moments, Trier establishes a rhythm of intimacy and unease. Nora’s first appearance, a backstage panic attack before a stage performance, signals a character unraveling, haunted by her mother’s recent death and her father’s sudden reentry into her life. By contrast, Agnes has pursued stability, a marriage and child shielding her from the volatility that still grips her sister. When Gustav offers Nora the lead in his new film, she refuses, unable to reconcile her childhood scars with her father’s ambitions. His decision to cast an eager American actress (Elle Fanning) instead sparks a quiet storm, as familial fractures widen beneath the pressures of art, grief, and expectation.
What gives Sentimental Value its quiet force is Trier’s patient orchestration of mood and memory. Extended flashbacks of the family home, shifting across decades, blur the boundaries between past and present, while the editing punctuates moments of emotional rupture with sudden cuts to black. The soundtrack, weaving between silence and soulful tracks, underscores the tension between nostalgia and loss, filling the spaces where words fail. Trier’s storytelling resists tidy resolution, instead layering history, silence, and hesitation into a narrative that feels lived rather than scripted. In doing so, the film captures how the weight of the past lingers in the present, shaping every gesture, every decision, every silence.
At its core, Sentimental Value is about the intangible currencies we inherit and pass on, like love, resentment, forgiveness, and the meanings we attach to both homes and people. Trier suggests that sentimental value is not a measure of objects or even achievements, but of the way we remain inside one another, for better or worse. Family is portrayed not as a guarantee of comfort but as a space where old wounds and enduring affections coexist, shaping who we become. It is a film of memory and survival, reminding us that the true value of a life lies not in what we create but in how we are remembered by those we leave behind.
