After the success of The Worst Person in the World, Norwegian director Joachim Trier returns with Sentimental Value, a quietly powerful family drama set in Oslo. While films about the inner workings of cinema are nothing new, Trier uses this familiar framework to explore something far more intimate: the fragile, often painful bonds between parents and children.
At the center is Stellan Skarsgård as an aging filmmaker attempting to reconnect with his two estranged daughters. Renate Reinsve once again impresses as a woman caught between anger, vulnerability, and unresolved love, while Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas brings warmth and restraint as her sister. When the father decides to make a new film inspired by his family’s past and casts a young American actress — played by Elle Fanning — instead of his daughter, the emotional rift deepens, turning artistic ambition into personal betrayal.
Much of the film unfolds within a single family home, a space saturated with memory, where past happiness and lingering sadness quietly collide. Trier balances emotional weight with moments of humor and lightness, allowing small gestures and silences to speak volumes. Sentimental Value is a reflective, humane film about family, regret, and the complicated love we inherit — a subtle and moving continuation of Trier’s deeply personal cinema.
