Cannes 2025: Joachim Trier’s ‘Sentimental Value’ Cinema on Cinema
by Alex Billington
May 22, 2025
Ahhhh yes the great majesty of beautiful, beautiful cinema. There’s nothing like that high of walking out of the theater having just seen a masterpiece. My tweet about dancing around the streets of Sundance after emerging from Call Me By Your Name in 2017 became part of cinema history after Luca Guadagnino talked about how it brought him so much joy that evening. This is the same feeling I have after emerging from the film Sentimental Value at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. One of the handful of final premieres at the end of the festival, Sentimental Value is Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s sixth feature film so far. His films have been playing at Cannes ever since 2011, with Oslo, August 31st (I distinctly remember watching this at the festival back then and not being a big fan). His films unquestionably belong here in Cannes and this one soars to new heights – it might just be his best film yet. As a major follow-up to 2021’s The Worst Person in the World (my review), Sentimental Value is a story about a filmmaker who is planning a new film in Oslo while also trying to reconnect with his two daughters. Before watching it, I wasn’t so sure that a film about filmmaking could be this good, but it’s really an instant classic. An all-timer – blissful cinema about cinema.
Sentimental Value, also known as Affeksjonsverdi originally in Norwegian, is co-written by Joachim Trier and his long-time collaborator Eskil Vogt. Together they’ve crafted a deeply affecting and captivating story about family and reconciliation and the real, true power of cinema. Trier re-teams with the oh so lovely and talented Norwegian actress Renate Reinsve (from The Worst Person in the World) who plays Nora Berg, one of the daughters of filmmaker Gustav Borg, co-starring Stellan Skarsgård in this massively important role. There’s obvious Ingmar Bergman references all over this, including that naming this famous director “Gustav Borg” seems a lot like a wink at Bergman right away. Trier also introduces us to another wonderful Norwegian actress named Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas as his other daughter Agnes, and everyone is going to be talking about her now just as much as they were talking about Renate after she rocked the world with The Worst Person in the World in 2021. After 15 years of not making anything new, the egotistical filmmaker maestro Gustav has finally written a new screenplay, and it’s to be set in the very same house he grew up. He wants his own daughter Nora to star in it, but she refuses, so he decides to cast the famous American actress Rachel Kemp (played perfectly by Elle Fanning) instead. Many challenges & much contemplation ensues.
This is the one we’ve been waiting for in Cannes this year! What a stunning film. It’s the kind that leaves you floating after it ends. That leaves you with a big grin on your face. That makes you want to starting dancing in the streets after because it’s just so gosh darn good (and the songs he picks are so danceable). It’s Trier’s exceptionally intelligent cinema on how cinema can actually heal us and change us, even though at times I wasn’t sure which way he was leaning. This fractured family is struggling, each one dealing with depression and worries and frustrations. There’s moment in this where it almost seems like Trier is saying that relying on cinema as a form of therapy is not good, and instead we need to actually spend real time with each other, and work on connecting in real life with real conversations. However, as the film continues, it builds into something more profound and philosophical as commentary on art seriously having the power to bring us together in its own curious ways. It’s beautifully tender, blissful, wholesome, masterful filmmaking in every sense and in every scene. He wants to leave us thinking about so much more than what we’re shown in these scenes. He wants to leave us with that feeling that vivid cinema will stay with us long after the credits roll. That’s where its real power lies, that’s how it can affect us and change us for the better. Let it wash over you.
I also love how light and lovely it is – the score by composer Hania Rani is amazing (she also did the score for The Summer Book). The soundtrack of songs throughout are perfect (my favorite is “Cannock Chase” by Labi Siffre). This is what all cinema should aspire to be. This is what film can be when made by a real master filmmaker who only gets better as he keeps making more. I’m just so happy about it being this exceptional and this moving. Best of all, this film deepens and adds even more layers The Worst Person in the World acting as meta commentary on how that film has meant so much to so many people. While this new film is also a magnificent work of its own saying that yes cinema does mean everything and can shape us. Brilliant stuff. This complex father is trying to reconcile with his daughters the only way he knows how – by making a film about his family. And it takes us on this journey, never feeling heavy-handed or overly sentimental in any scene, instead showing us the real power of reconnection and art, and being honest in whatever way you know how. “Tenderness is the new punk,” Trier stated at the Cannes press conference. Yes it is. “I need to believe that we can see the other, that there is a sense of reconciliation.” And this film shows us the way.
Alex’s Cannes 2025 Rating: 9.8 out of 10
Follow Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing
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