Original caricature by Jeff York of the main cast of SENTIMENTAL VALUE (copyright 2025).
The interplay between one’s art and real life are the subject of no fewer than four Best Picture contenders this year. SINNERS, JAY KELLY, HAMNET, and SENTIMENTAL VALUE are all arguably show biz dramas where a character’s artistry is heavily informed by extraordinary events in their lives. In the case of the Norwegian comedy/drama SENTIMENTAL VALUE, that theme is played front and center with a story concerning an aging filmmaker stirring the pot by choosing to make a biographical film about his strained family history. Written and directed by Jachim Trier, SENTIMENTAL VALUE studies how his art constantly informs the filmmaker’s family, and how family constantly informs the man’s art.
That filmmaker is Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgard), a man who abandoned his family as his career accelerated 15 years ago, and yet his influence on the two daughters remained paramount. Nora (Renate Reinsve), the eldest has become an acclaimed stage actress, albeit a neurotic one prone to panic attacks and sleeping with costars. Younger daughter Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) starred as a child in one of her father’s pictures, but she abandoned acting to concentrate on creating an ideal family unit that her father denied her lo those many years ago.
Now, after the death of their mother, the girls must contend with the return of their father into their lives. Adding insult to the injury is the fact that Gustav wants to use the family house as the setting for his next film which is to be a biography of his mother who committed suicide there when he was a young boy. Suddenly, all the issues and dynamics of life with dear old dad return and it’s only a matter of time before tempers flare and something’s got to give. Oh, did I mention that Gustav also wants Agnes’ son to play him in the film? Complicated. Messy. Inappropriate. Pick your adjective.
The comedy parts are few but come out of the inability of anyone left in the family to shake off their father entirely. When Gustav casts a star American actress named Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) in the part of his mother, the daughters are both horrified, yet also star struck. Additionally, the financing for Gustav’s film is to come from Netflix, so Trier can get in a lot of digs at how films are produced today. Perhaps the greatest humor in the film comes from the fact that for all the angst in the plotting, it brings everyone in the family closer together.
Reinsve and Lilleaas convey all kinds of hurt and confusion with nuance, Fanning wears Rachel’s vulnerability on her sleeve as the in-over-her-head actress, and Skarsgard is terrific as always. He’s almost too charming considering his character left his daughter’s high and dry for almost two decades. Perhaps Trier absolves Gustav of his sins too readily by showcasing how his career has affected the family in good ways, but it makes for a very clever film that is meta in many ways, managing to make us laugh and cry at the story within the story, and the film wrapped around it.
It all makes SENTIMENTAL VALUE, indeed, sentimental. In the battle between art and real life, one would think that there’s more lasting damage with reality losing out more often than not. Still in this version of life vs art, the artist is allowed to not only fulfill his artistic vision but get a second chance to be a decent dad again too. It may be fantastical, but mostly, it’s pretty fantastic.
