NZIFF: Sentimental Value

Joachim Trier’s follow-up to his arthouse hit The Worst Person in the World, this piercing and ecstatically moving reflection on family and memory stars Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, and Elle Fanning.

“An exuberant, garrulous, self-aware picture about an ageing and egomaniac film director and his two grownup daughters… it’s a movie of daddy issues and cinematic adventures in the manner of Fellini and Bergman.

Stellan Skarsgård plays preening auteur Gustav Borg, whose career is on the slide; many years ago, he left his wife and two young daughters, abandoning the family home – the house where Gustav himself was brought up. Now their mother has died, and just as the two daughters are sorting through the house’s contents for things of sentimental value they might want to keep before selling the house, they are stunned to realise that the insufferable Gustav actually still has legal rights to the property and now wants to use it as a location for a biopic about his mother, who took her own life there due to the trauma of being tortured by the Nazis during the war.

To add insult to injury, Gustav begs now famous screen actor daughter Nora (Renate Reinsve) to take the lead role of her own grandmother, expecting that Nora, whom he neglected for most of her life, will use her stage fame to revive his flagging career. After Nora angrily refuses, the part is taken by Hollywood superstar Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), who has fallen for Gustav’s rascally charm.” — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

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