​Trier’s family ties: ‘Sentimental Value’

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” continues to make an award-season push for recognition as it expands to additional screens following its initial premiere in May at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded the Grand Prix. Both longtime and more recent fans of the filmmaker will be dazzled by Trier’s command of the cinematic medium. The auteur, writing again with longtime collaborator Eskil Vogt, locates the sweet spot between image-driven storytelling and the intense, dialogue-rich melodrama embodied by a dream cast populated by familiar regulars as well as fresh newcomers to Trier’s cinematic universe. Some followers may prefer the new offering, which shifts focus from a single central character to a multigenerational family saga.

In the kind of arts-and-crafts metanarrative that propelled the likes of Fellini’s “8 ½” (1963) and Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” (2004), “Sentimental Value” introduces viewers to Stellan Skarsgård’s aging film director Gustav Borg, whose surname deliberately matches the one bestowed by Ingmar Bergman on his “Wild Strawberries” protagonist Isak. Gustav, who left his young family years ago, has now circled back to adult daughters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) following the death of their mother. Looming even larger as an actual site of connection is the family home, a spacious Oslo classic still legally owned by Gustav.

Gustav announces his eyebrow-raising plan to shoot a semiautobiographical feature using the house as the principal location. He also offers the lead role — partly based on Gustav’s mother — to Nora, who wants absolutely nothing to do with the production. Nora’s own success as a performer on television and live theatre is quintessential Trier/Vogt; she is introduced in a tour de force sequence tracking a demonic attack of stage fright that sparks with exquisitely excruciating suspense. The mysterious source of Nora’s self-doubt later becomes apparent as we see her in all kinds of painful conversations with Gustav. Neither can easily mend or reconcile personal feelings of abandonment or their family-business competition.

Since Nora sticks to her guns in the unwavering refusal to work with her father, Gustav (mis)casts Hollywood starlet Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) in the part. Communicating all sorts of entertaining inside-baseball allusions to the contemporary landscape of movie financing and distribution — Gustav’s film is being bankrolled at least in part by Netflix — Trier strikes a balance between the Bergman-esque trauma of the Borg family dynamics and a breezier and more humorous examination of life behind the scenes. Fanning rises to the occasion in a demanding role that requires a level of openness and naivete balanced with the willingness to seek deeper connections through character research that Gustav can’t help but mock.

We also learn that when she was a child, Agnes appeared in one of Gustav’s best-received movies (Trier treats us to a clip of the film at a retrospective screening). Now, he wants the son of Agnes, his grandchild, to act in his new movie. The request troubles Agnes, who long ago made the conscious choice to leave behind show business for life as an academic. In one hilarious moment, Gustav inappropriately gives copies of “The Piano Teacher” and “Irreversible” to his pre-teen grandson, a cheeky nod to Trier’s own unrelenting cinephilia. Little touches like these place “Sentimental Value” in the company of “The Worst Person in the World.” And even though the 2021 film is superior, Trier adds another enthralling title to his filmography.