Trier’s latest work showcases a gut-wrenchingly beautiful portrayal of family dynamics, generational trauma and emotional distance.
Sentimental Value is the latest drama from the Danish-Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier. Premiering at the 2025 Cannes FIlm Festival, the film has scored big: winning the Grand Prix in Cannes in 2025, taking home a number of Golden Globes earlier this year, and recently securing nine Oscar nominations. I had the pleasure of watching this masterpiece thanks to the York Student Cinema where it became clear to me that its success is well-deserved.
The film follows the lives of sisters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), and their father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), who, after leaving in their childhood, re-enters their lives following the passing of their mother. Gustav, who is a renowned filmmaker, approaches Nora, a stage actress, with the hopes that she will take up the lead position in his latest and final work. She declines the position without reading the script, struggling to accept the re-emergence of her father in her life. Gustav instead turns to a young, up and coming American actress, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), to play the lead role.
Throughout the film, we learn about their family history and how trauma has shaped each characters’ ability to communicate emotional intimacy. As more about the family is revealed, the similarities between Nora and Gustav in their response to their trauma begin to unravel. It becomes clear that Gustav’s difficult personality and absence as a father are largely a response to the challenges of his traumatic past in which his mother, who had spent time in a Nazi camp, had committed suicide. Nora mirrors her father’s difficulty communicating her emotional turmoil. Not only is she in a constant battle with her own mental health problems, but the rehashing of her trauma that was brought by the renewed presence of father further intensifies her inability to confront and communicate her emotions.
Trier describes the film as “a love letter to cinema”, stating that he wanted to give recognition to how “cinematic language somehow gets us closer to people than we can in our everyday social life”.
He captures the power of cinema beautifully, not only through his storytelling and use of their family house as a focal point throughout the film, but also through the character’s connection to the arts. We see how both Nora and Gustav have turned to the arts as an outlet for emotional expression which they have been unable to articulate in their private lives. In highlighting their reliance on artistic expression, the story pays a powerful tribute to the arts as a means of communicating the most vulnerable parts of ourselves.
What made this film so impactful to me was the subtlety in its depiction of family dynamics. While it captures the tragic elements of emotional distance within the family, it is ultimately a story of hope and reflection on the challenges we all face with ourselves and those around us. Trier’s storytelling was not loud or dramatic but instead focused on silent moments, facial expressions and the words left unspoken in order to convey the emotional disconnect between characters. It is through this quiet showcasing of each character complexity that the film’s message can be understood universally, leaving you with a comforting, yet slightly heartbreaking, sense of relatability towards the characters’ flaws and the struggles that they face in confronting their emotions.