Sentimental Value

“Well, I want you in the lead role. I wrote it for you… You’re the only one who can play it.”  * *Sentimental Value is a complex play inside of a play film that really understands the difficulties of family and self image better than most. It’s complex in its story telling format, but not in a way thats hard to understand. I saw someone who said Sentimental Value is like a rubix cube of emotion, that really only sets in to its full potential when the cube is set in the table.  And all the colors just line up… That’s how Joachim Trier directed this provocative masterpiece. All the colors lined up, and it’s clear as day that Sentimental Value is one of the great modern films.  Communicating to the audience through art, while the audience watches an extremely intimate showcase of a father and a daughter working to communicate. Then they finally do so through the sentiment of art. Genius  In terms of cinematography Sentimental Value is very well made, the entire film feels deeply quiet and personal, and most of that comes from the way the entire cinematography team shot this film.  The acting is superb, and contains some of the highlight roles of 2025.  Renate Reinsve was incredible, and played an extremely complicated female lead. I would be comfortable saying this is one of the best written LEADS of the year, and one of my favorite female LEADS ever.  All of Nora’s layers of emotions unraveling like an onion is a heavy experience for the audience, and that because Renate Reinsve gave a jaw dropping and gut wrenching performance.  Stellan Skarsgård also has a dominant screen presence, that gives you a rare look into the troubled and tragic family life that surrounds him due to his poor choices as a father.  A carbon copy of his daughter, but extremely difficult for both of them to find a way to understand the lack of communication. Skarsgård couldn’t have portrayed this any better.  Both truly dynamic and emotional performances.  Other Notable roles:  -Ella Fanning -Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas -Anders Danielsen Lee -Lena Endre The acting is superb, and the key factor to making this film feel so lonely and emotional, yet so in tact with death and grief. Trier direction lined up the idea that characters can communicate the difference of understanding though a medium such as filmmaking.  Which is of course, communication through the medium of art.  The Score is incredible, and is complex just like the rest of Triers vision, many of the soundtrack songs contain many references to the characters we follow throughout sentimental value.  I love Needle Drops that have meaning to the entire film, and Sentimental Value is a perfect example of that. Cannock Chase hit, and not because I’ve known the song for years; Rather that it felt so right in the moment.  Sentimental Value is up there with Train Dreams and Hamnet for best complex emotional films, and would be my vote for one of the greatest movies of the year, if not the entire decade.  The only true week point is the costume and makeup just feels standard, but that’s always contemporary based pieces.  I plan to see this masterpiece again, the message sat clear as day, and hit on a personal level.  To be seen so clearly by an artist is an unexplainable feeling, and that’s exactly the mark Trier wanted to leave on the audience. An unexplainable feeling of recognition through Nora feeling the same thing.  To me, Sentimental Value is one of the great modern pieces in film history, and showcases masterful work in terms of all my key categories. Sentimental Value is one of the greatest and emotionally available, yet emotionally complex play inside of a play type stories ever written.  2025 is on a run late this year with masterful intimate film work, with some of my all time favorites of the decade showcasing true direction, script writing, and acting. Sentimental Value is an emotional rollercoaster, that unpacks itself like a rubix cube.