I don’t know how adults do it. Every single day, you gotta find time to work, exercise, clean, make food, have hobbies, maintain relationships… so much, and it’s every day. I’m already someone who watches maybe one or two movies a week, the disruption of having to watch 10 extra films and write 10 blog posts in a month should be pretty minimal. And yet I maintain such a delicate balance that by the end of July, I’m all out of whack. And I just have myself and an adorable cat to take care of! Imagine having a spouse and kids and more! Ugh. No wonder there are so many stories about deadbeat dads.
Like a less ambitious, Norwegian version of Robert Zemeckis’ Here, Sentimental Value is the story of a house. It’s the Oslo home of filmmaker Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård) and has been in his family for generations. When Gustav and his wife, psychotherapist Sissel (Marianne Vassbotn Klasson), divorce, Gustav leaves her the home… and the responsibility to raise their two daughters. Nora (Renate Reinsve) grows up to be a revered stage actor who deals with crippling stage fright and her younger sister, Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), works as a historian and has started her own family. When Sissel dies, Gustav comes back in his daughters’ lives in a big way, revealing that he still legally owns the home and wants to use it to film his big comeback picture.
Gustav invites Nora to a cafe and offers her the lead in the film, but she refuses to even look at the script. At the Deauville American Film Festival in France, Gustav meets a young, American star named Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) who adores one of his earlier films, which coincidentally starred Agnes as a child. Rachel agrees to play the lead in Gustav’s movie, instantly solving his financial problems as the project gets picked up by Netflix. Gustav asks Agnes to let her young son also act in the movie, stirring up her own conflicted feelings about working with him. Meanwhile Nora has been having an affair with her married colleague, Jakob (Anders Danielsen Lie), who does get a divorce but still won’t commit to her. Secrets are revealed, hearts are broken, and, most tragically, that house gets a soul-crushing makeover.
I have a love for IKEA and Scandi decor so Sentimental Value was a real treat for me aesthetically. To the point where I’m like maybe I need to watch more contemporary Scandinavian movies just for design tips. I can’t fully relate to how so many generations of Gustav’s family lived in the same home, but I can imagine a fraction of it since my parents have lived in the same house my entire life, and the knowledge that we’re getting closer and closer to them moving out and somebody probably immediately demolishing it is disturbing. I would so much prefer it if nothing ever had to change, but that’s just not how the world works.
Joachim Trier, who Criterion calls “one of contemporary cinema’s great humanists,” is no Ingmar Bergman, despite casting a Swedish star (Skarsgård speaks Swedish in the film and apparently that’s close enough to Norwegian that it works). Sentimental Value wraps up in a surprisingly neat little bow, providing frankly heartwarming catharsis. I never saw it coming, in a fraught story so filled with unspoken tragedy and misunderstanding. What a pleasant way to wrap up this year’s Criterion Month!