“A house is just a house,” as the saying goes, but in Joachim Trier’s latest film, “Sentimental Value,” it is so much more than that. The house in question is a place filled with memories and grief, a structure that holds people back from growing while also forcing them to grow beyond what once took place in the home. It becomes a character in and of itself.
The movie opens with a narrator giving life to the family home at the center of the movie, talking about the “noise” the house made. The referenced noise is the parents fighting even though, as the narrator states, “what the house disliked more than noise was silence.” It’s a powerful preview of the fractured family in Trier’s story.
In the same exposition, the audience learns the father of the family wasn’t always the easiest person to get along with and eventually left the home. “When her father left for good, the house grew lighter,” the narrator says. Years later, sisters Nora (Renate Reinsve, who starred in Trier’s 2021 film “The Worst Person in the World) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) are reunited with their father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård) at their mother’s funeral reception, as Gustav could not bear to show up for the funeral. It’s clear the daughters’ relationship with their father is strained, but Agnes is more open to spending time with her father than Nora.
Gustav is a filmmaker whose work is about to be a part of a retrospective at a festival. While he is back at home, he meets with Nora in the hopes of starting to repair their relationship. Nora is a stage actress, but her father wants to bring her into the movie world and hands her a script across a restaurant table. As with anything connected to her father, Nora is hesitant to engage and even more suspicious of his motivations. Gustav says he has always loved and worried about her, and can only do this movie with her in the lead role. She refuses his offer.
Gustav was certain the script would be the bridge to a better relationship with Nora, but time hasn’t healed any wounds. At the festival where he’s being celebrated, Gustav meets Rachel (Elle Fanning), an American actress who takes on the part he wrote for Nora. Gustav is initially excited about working with Rachel, but Skarsgård’s performance is so nuanced that, with a mere glance, the audience knows Gustav realizes the movie won’t work without Nora in the lead role.
What’s masterful about “Sentimental Value” is its subtlety. Trier doesn’t spell out the familial trauma because the specifics aren’t as important as the ramifications. Nora has clearly never healed from what went on in the house when she and Agnes were growing up. The movie offers powerful moments without flirting with histrionics. Perhaps the adult characters don’t want to relive the yelling — or “noise” — that was made in the house, and a lot of the conversations in “Sentimental Value” are achieved not through words, but through pained looks or screen plays of hopeful reconciliation. Resinsve, Skarsgård and Lilleaas bring authenticity without the weight of trying to give big, flashy performances: a trio tailor made for year-end awards consideration (and while they all deserve it; Skarsgård especially).
On its surface, “Sentimental Value” is about healing through art. Everyone in the movie needs healing and they are on their own path to finding that. Agnes isn’t naïve to her relationship with her father, but for her son’s sake it’s better to accept him back into her life. Nora, who is single and sleeping with a married actor (Anders Danielsen Lie, a frequent collaborator of Trier’s), is more apt to hold onto her anger because she only has to think of herself.Gustav does not always have the right words to say or the ability to confront his relationship with his daughters, so uses his art — hoping it will reach out and speak to his daughters.
“Sentimental Value” opens at The Little on November 26. More info and tickets here.
