SENTIMENTAL VALUE Review
- Gerald Morris
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
Some films tell a family story. Sentimental Value feels like it wandered into your own, quietly rearranged a few memories, and then left you to sit with the mess.
Joachim Trier’s latest is a father–daughter drama on the surface, but under that it’s a film about time, about the way we turn life into narrative, and about how cinema becomes a substitute language when we don’t know how to speak honestly to the people closest to us. It’s also easily sitting in my top ten of the year.
The Setup: A Family Rewritten on Screen
After their mother Sissel dies, sisters Nora and Agnes are pushed back into contact with their estranged father, Gustav. Years ago, he chose his career as a celebrated director over any real attempt at being a parent, and the damage has calcified.
Now, after fifteen years without a film, Gustav is trying to claw his way back. His comeback project is personal to the point of discomfort: a movie about his own mother, who took her life in the same Norwegian home the family still owns — a place steeped in trauma dating back to Nazi torture during the war.
Gustav wants Nora, now an accomplished stage actor, to play her grandmother. Nora shuts it down with zero hesitation. Instead, he casts American star Rachel Kemp, a Hollywood import he meets during a retrospective of his work in France. As production starts, Gustav treats this film as a two-for-one: a bid to restore his artistic reputation and a last chance to mend the wreckage with his daughters.
The movie within the movie, the actual history that inspired it, and the emotional fallout between these people all start bleeding into one another. That layering is where Sentimental Value really lives.
Haunted by Time
From the opening stretch, the film has a way of making time feel physical. It’s in the silences that drag on just a beat too long, in the awkward reunions in familiar rooms, and in the way the old family home is shot like it’s absorbing the weight of every memory it has ever hosted.
The tone is undeniably melancholy, but it never sinks into pure gloom. Trier folds in little pockets of warmth, nostalgia, even humor. You feel the comfort of shared history sitting right next to the resentment it created. That mix makes it easy to believe these people have been circling each other for decades.
A lot of the film has a “vintage” pulse to it — the pacing, the attention to faces, the sense of physical space. At the same time, it’s very aware of the modern world it’s arriving in. Gustav’s new film is picked up by Netflix, and when someone asks about theatrical play, he reacts with total bewilderment: to him, movies belong in theaters by default. That line isn’t just a throwaway joke; it quietly sketches the gap between the era he comes from and the one his daughters live in.
The script (and it’s one of the strongest of the year) slips in observations about phones, attention spans, and the hypocrisy of how adults and kids get judged for the same habits. There’s a sharp little moment about children being scolded for screen time while their parents are glued to their phones around the clock. It’s wry, but it also underlines the central idea: everyone here is only half-present in their actual lives.
Cinema as a Second Language
One of the most affecting threads in Sentimental Value is the way Trier locks cinema and family together. Gustav doesn’t just want to make a film; he wants to fix his life through the process of making a film. For him, those two goals are the same.
The movie keeps returning to this question:What happens when the only way you know how to express yourself is through art? For a lot of us, movies end up as emotional shorthand. We reference scenes and characters when our own words fall short. “That moment felt like this movie” becomes easier to say than actually describing what we felt.
On a personal level, that hit me hard.I still remember seeing Back to the Future with my dad when I was 11. In my head, that night sits right on the surface, like I can reach out and touch it. In reality, that was four decades ago. The movie keeps it feeling close; the calendar insists it isn’t.
Trier builds an entire film out of that tension. Movies freeze moments. Life doesn’t. Film can hold onto a version of us that doesn’t age. Our relationships don’t get that treatment. They erode, or deepen, or fracture while we’re busy watching the replay. Underneath the elegant craft, there’s a very simple, very painful idea: you can preserve an image forever, but you don’t get that luxury with the people you love.
The Performances
Renate Reinsve as Nora
Renate Reinsve continues to make a case for herself as one of the defining actors of her generation. Her Nora is sharp, funny, and perpetually on edge. She carries a defensive energy that never fully relaxes, even in moments that should be tender.
Because Nora is an actor, the film gets playful and devastating with that premise. There are scenes where we see her on the verge of a breakdown, only for the edit to reveal we’re watching her in performance. Those transitions blur the line between where Nora ends and the roles begin. Reinsve nails that ambiguity — you can never tell how much of the emotion is “for the scene” and how much is bleeding over from the wounds she refuses to face directly.
It’s a deeply controlled performance that still feels raw.
Elle Fanning as Rachel
Elle Fanning’s work as Rachel Kemp is more deceptively calibrated. Rachel is a successful Hollywood actor, but here she’s stepping into a family psychodrama she doesn’t fully understand.
Gustav is essentially asking her to become his mother, as filtered through his guilt, nostalgia, and ego. The cruel twist is that the model for this character is Nora — who herself is a reflection of the real woman they’re trying to resurrect.
Fanning plays Rachel as someone who knows her craft but is unprepared for what this role asks of her. There’s an earnestness to her approach, a desire to do right by the material, even as she keeps bumping into emotional landmines that predate her involvement. She’s sympathetic without ever feeling like a victim, and she brings a quiet curiosity that makes every scene with her feel alive.
Inga Isbotter-Lilleaas as Agnes
Then there’s Inga Isbotter-Lilleaas as Agnes, the “settled” sister. She doesn’t get the big acting fireworks, yet she quietly owns some of the film’s most intimate beats. Agnes is the one who followed the more conventional path: marriage, kids, the kind of domestic stability Nora rejected. But the film is very clear — the gap between these sisters isn’t as wide as it looks on paper. Their values, their anger, their buried sadness all line up.
Lilleaas captures that beautifully. Her performance is anchored in small choices: a pulled-back reaction here, a tense smile there, the habit of stepping out of the spotlight but never fully out of frame. She gives the film a grounding presence it really needs.
Stellan Skarsgård as Gustav
Stellan Skarsgård, as Gustav, delivers the kind of late-career performance that reminds you just how deep his range goes. Gustav is a mess of contradictions: arrogant, needy, charismatic, manipulative, genuinely talented, emotionally stunted. He has wrapped his entire identity around the idea of being an auteur, and the cost of that has landed squarely on his children.
Skarsgård doesn’t try to sand the character down into something easily redeemable. He leans into Gustav’s narcissism and blindness, then slowly lets you see the regret leaking out through the cracks. There are a few moments — simple glances, small stumbles in his posture — where you can tell he understands that some damage can’t be undone, no matter how poetic the film he makes about it.
Given how long Skarsgård has been part of this industry, and the fact he’s raised actors of his own, the role takes on a meta charge that’s hard to ignore. You can feel him drawing on that lived experience. It makes this one of the most moving performances of the year.
Oscars Chances
Sentimental Value feels built to be in the awards conversation, and it deserves to be. On the acting side, there’s a legitimate case for across-the-board recognition: Reinsve, Fanning, Lilleaas, and especially Skarsgård. In a sane world, he’s sitting near the top of any Supporting Actor lineup.
Beyond that, this has all the makings of a serious Best Picture player. It speaks the Academy’s language: it’s about filmmaking and legacy, but it never tips into self-congratulation. The international angle and the emotional heft give it extra weight.
International Feature should absolutely have it in the mix. Original Screenplay feels like a no-brainer nomination if voters are paying attention — the writing is too intricate and too emotionally precise to ignore. Cinematography and Production Design also feel well within reach, particularly with how the house, the set, and the surrounding landscape are used to mirror the characters’ inner states.
And with the new Best Casting category entering the race, this kind of perfectly calibrated ensemble should be front and center in that discussion. A lot of movies this year are about the industry. This one actually understands how the art form and personal lives tangle together.
The Verdict
Sentimental Value is a quiet powerhouse — a film that sneaks up on you emotionally while you’re admiring the craft. It’s about an aging director trying to mount one last artistic statement, but what lingers is the portrait of daughters who are tired of living as footnotes in their father’s story. It’s about the comfort and danger of using movies to process our own history, and the painful truth that even the most perfect shot can’t repair years that were spent looking the other way.
For me, this is one of the standout films of the year.If you’ve ever measured chunks of your life by the films you saw and who you saw them with, this one hits in a very specific, uncomfortable, beautiful way. Seek it out, let it sit with you, and maybe call someone you haven’t spoken to in a while once the credits roll.