Sentimental Value
By Ignacio Zamorano
Staff Writer
Montréal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinéma—this year’s edition held October 8-19—grants audiences in this city an early look at various films; from niche local fare, boosting the reach of burgeoning Québécois auteurs, to inarguable awards season contenders, the festival provides something for everybody with a love for cinema. Joachim Trier’s latest film—a follow-up to his critically acclaimed 2021 The Worst Person in the World—is one of the latter. Receiving broad critical acclaim out of Cannes—where the film held its world premiere and won the Grand Prix, the festival’s second-most prestigious award—has been ubiquitous in discussions of the upcoming awards season. To a packed house in this city’s Cinéma du Musée, this reviewer had the opportunity to watch Trier’s latest work about a month prior to its
theatrical release in North America, scheduled for November 7th. What’s most striking about the film is how in control Trier is of its whole. Visually, with its carefully constructed frames; narratively, with the most constructive use of voiceovers that I’ve witnessed in a long time; and structurally, with every cut to black signalling the conclusion of a narrative shift reminiscent of theatrical structure. The film, a family drama, is aware of its scale and its branching out to the filmmaker’s tale never feels a departure from reality. As a drama, it is heartbreaking at times and undoubtedly hilarious at others—a scene involving a DVD of Haneke’s The Piano Teacher is one of the funniest moments you’ll see at a cinema this year—aided by the incredible range and poignancy of Renate Reinsve’s performance. In a cast of great performances—worth noting is the newcomer Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas— Stellan Skarsgård delivers the supporting performance of the year as he is magnetic in every scene he gets in his role as European auteur and troubled family man; he lends this character all the levity he holds in Trier’s script, making various scenes— particularly those with Elle Fanning (who portrays an American film star)—delightful. The oft-minimalistic score properly fulfills its role as it rapidly crescendos in the adequate moments. Trier’s film is a sublimely executed drama and undoubtedly one of the films of the year.