Rewriting Sentimentality

Before we dive in, take a moment to think about the house you grew up in. Do you recall an object or a memory for its, if I may, ‘Sentimental Value’?

About 20 minutes into Joachim Trier’s film of the same name, sisters Agnes and Nora lay out a selection of jars and vases. Their mother’s death brings the real possibility of them losing the Swiss Chalet-style house owned by their estranged father Gustav. Agnes wants to keep a few things out of “affeksjon (affection)”. Nora, despite having spent her entire life under the massive gambrel roof, wants nothing of it.

It comes as a shock as Nora is earlier introduced as the more sensitive, emotionally inclined sister. In her school essay, she muses if the house’s belly shakes when she and Agnes rush down the stairs, or whether the house prefers feeling “full” with people or “lighter” with none. Kasper Tuxen’s fluid camera moves through the halls, leans into the nooks and zooms in on the cracks in the walls — it’s storytelling with few words being uttered.

The child-like wonder, however, is replaced with far less comforting “noises” — the quarrels, a drinking problem, and eventually a haunting “silence”.

Gustav, we are told, took off to build his filmmaking career only to return for his latest project. He maintains that the role was written for Nora — who has herself built a successful, if volatile, relationship with the performing arts. But given the wounded nature of their relationship, she refuses any attempt at reconciliation.

Watching Rachel, a Hollywood A-lister, replace Nora not only on screen but also in the role of a daughter to Gustav eats away at the viewer. He is protective of her like he was never of Nora, or Agnes even; it’s a gripping watch.

Eskil Vogt and Trier’s character-driven writing, a standout even in prior projects like ‘The Worst Person in the World’, shines here.

And just when the viewer starts to take sides, Trier plays his final masterstroke — shifting the lens on Gustav. Here’s a man losing grip over the craft that he spent his entire life honing. All he has left is a deeply personal story, rejected by those central to it, and now lost in a language (both literally and metaphorically) alien to him.

The performances are stellar across the board. As Nora and Agnes, Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas take very little time to build a rapport with the audience. You laugh with them, shed a tear or two and wish them well.

Stellan Skarsgard as Gustav, on the other hand, wins you over with his vulnerability. Hell, even Elle Fanning imbues charm and melancholy into a Hollywood outsider who for the love of God cannot master a Scandinavian accent (is there even one?).

Structurally, ‘Sentimental Value’ unfolds as a meta film within a film narrative. Several characters act out scenes from Gustav’s script, stage productions and the viewer doesn’t know it until someone yells “Cut!” or turns off the floodlights.

There’s a nod to the power of the spoken word and cinema itself as Gustav’s script becomes a metaphor for the “unsaid”.

The script is essential to the climactic scene, possibly the most unfiltered three minutes of human emotions you’ll see on screen all year (kudos to Reinsve and Lilleaas).

The film takes a while to get there, even slogs at times in the middle phase, but it completes Nora’s arc. She finds the sentimental value not in objects or memories, but in someone’s acknowledgement and effort to rectify the past.