Nick Jeffers

I can't remember the last time I cried multiple times during a movie, during the credits, on the train back from the theater, before I went to bed, and the next morning trying to figure out what to say about it. What's wild though is that there's no heartbreaking emotional climax or tragic moment, just real people, real relationships, and real human emotion. So many movies today are so emotionally manipulative, creating these unspeakably devastating situations for their characters just to get some tears out of you. It sometimes works, but it doesn't stick with you for very long after leaving the theater, and that's because the tears come from the situation, and not the characters. Sentimental Value does the exact opposite. It builds these characters so subtly in a way that you’ll suddenly go from not really knowing what they’re each feeling to wanting nothing more than for each of them to be happy. You’ll find that you’re somehow perceiving each character from the perspective of the characters around them, feeling like you’ve known them for their entire lives, and caring for them as if they were your own sibling or parent. Part of why this works so well is of course the incredible performances, particularly Renate Reinsve, who is without a doubt one of the best actors of her generation. The film is full of all these very quiet moments, that subtly add more and more to your understanding of these characters and their relationships, and in turn adding to the overall emotional core. This creates this strange emotional puzzle, that is somehow at once easy to digest and incredibly moving. You don’t notice how much each moment affects you until you randomly start crying in between scenes and you’re not quite sure why. Each blurring of art and reality, each shot of Renate Reinsve walking, each shot of an empty room in the house who's framed as a character of its own, all get tucked away somewhere within you, until it all unravels and you feel a massive wave of emotion. This is how stories should be told. Edit: I remember the last time now, it was Perfect Days, and if you know me you know how much that means.

Self-centered lonely man, disconnected from the struggles of his family and the world around him tries to do something important for himself. It  blows up in his face, he turns to the people he was ignoring, they understandably turn their backs on him, and he ultimately gets fucked by America’s fascistic tendencies which he thought he existed outside of. Pretty sick. La Chimera but less Italian and slightly less good. Josh O’Connor is brilliant as always.

Violent revolution and a couple modelos with Benicio del Toro are all I need in life