La peor persona del mundo

Renate Reinsve is giving one of the performances of the year in this turbulent movie about what it's like being alive.

I came home from this and told my wife how much it reminded me of "Annie Hall" at times. And then later I was reading a profile of the writer and director, Joachim Trier, which mentioned that "Annie Hall" specifically was a huge inspiration for him as a film maker. So there you go.

Is Reinsve the worst person in the world? Hardly. She's a warm, loving woman, trying to figure out how to give love to others and yet get what she needs and feels she deserves herself. What happens when those two things seem mutually exclusive? Welcome to human relationships.

The movie is very funny in its first half, and then gets very sad in its last half. But it's never emotionally manipulative. It makes the case that it's ok to look out for yourself and your needs, but also that part of growing as a person is learning that the world isn't all about you.

Grade: A.

What a wonderful film. It's amazing how when you leave Hollywood behind, you find gems like this. Acting, script and direction are all excellent and the film is engaging from start to end.

'The Worst Person in the World (2021)' is a deeply moving experience. It resonates with me in a way that very few films do. I feel it. It isn't just entertainment, it's something more. Exactly what that is, I can't quite say. Through a seemingly simple story of one woman's life, the picture works its way into your mind, your heart, your soul itself and provokes powerful emotions that you didn't even know movies could provoke; not just sadness or joy or excitement or longing (all of which it provokes in droves), but the kind of emotions that can't be put into words, the kind that weigh on your consciousness and shape your relationship with yourself and the world around you. It's difficult to describe, really, and I'm sure I'm probably slipping into hyperbole. I've lost any sense of objectivity (what little I usually have, at any rate) when it comes to discussing this picture, because its ultimate impact is one that I just can't shake and I'm not sure I ever want to. It's a profoundly affecting affair, one that overcomes any of its initial slowness or slice-of-life limitations, thanks primarily to its uncompromisingly complex nature. It's one of the most honest pieces of fiction I've ever seen, crafting characters who seem like they could walk off the screen and representing reality - or, at least, our lived experience of it - in a way that most kitchen-sink dramas could only dream of doing. It presents a plethora of powerful and often poignant ideas that keenly represent the human condition, all while remembering that its protagonist is the one driving the action and that it owes her a fully-formed narrative that entertains as much as it stirs. Its infrequent formalistic touches are absolutely delightful, but it's the rock-solid 'regular' stuff that matters the most. These moments are told not with style, but with substance; the actors often tell entire libraries worth of stories with their eyes alone. Indeed, this is some of the best acting I've seen in a long time, capable of conveying thought and emotion without so much as a single word. It's often all in the eyes; you could get lost in the pupils of its two leads. The chapter-based structure lends vitality to a plot that may otherwise have felt a little aimless, and the writing is simply divine. The feature just nails everything it sets out to achieve. The more I think about it, the more I like it. It's the sort of thing that proves ratings are insignificant. How can you assign stars to something like this? I can't put my feelings into words, let alone stars. I can't quantify it by the same metrics I use for other films. Even if it isn't as entertaining as the ones I enjoy the most, it's almost certainly much more powerful; very few of them make me feel the way this one does. Maybe another viewing is necessary to determine the picture's true score. Then again, maybe this right here - what I'm feeling right now - is more than enough. It isn't the sort of thing I experience very often; as such, it's a bit hard to process. What else can I say? This is honestly the kind of film that I could see changing your life in one way or another, however small and seemingly insignificant. As I mentioned earlier, it's a deeply moving experience.

It's been a couple of hours since I watched this, and I'll admit, it's been hard to figure out how to give some thoughts on it through text.

I will say it resonated with me emotionally- far more than your average movie. I really felt it, y'know? Not in a way that's going to make me reshape my life or change what I'm doing day to day necessarily, but there was something to it that makes me sure it's going to stick in my brain for weeks, maybe months or even years to come.

I can't go much further than that. It's a wonderful, sometimes funny, sometimes bittersweet, sometimes soul-crushing film, and all the emotions are explored and interweaved perfectly.

There are so many great scenes... the scene where time freezes, the "what is cheating" scene, the scene in and around the hospital, the scene with the magic mushrooms... it's almost like every single chapter in the film is a highlight, and it all fits together almost perfectly.

It's a special film- the more I think about it, the better it gets, and the more it resonates. Also features some of the best acting I've seen in a while from its two leads, Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie. They're so compelling it's almost alarming how invested you get in their characters, maybe because they begin to feel like real people, at a point. Especially in the last half-hour or so- I was blown away by how real they felt, and how easily I believed that these two characters had known each other for years.

Might be a 5/5 on a rewatch, in all honesty. Life being tough and all at the moment, I was distracted by some of my own problems while watching these fictional characters deal with theirs. But the moments of crossover were extremely cathartic, and as a film, it flows so well, and didn't feel two hours long, despite having pacing that wasn't afraid to slow down from time to time.

Well, how about that.

I actually wrote quite a lot.

Good films will do that to you.

Reading the other reviews I am amazed polarizing this film seems to be. When I watched the film a few days ago at the Viennale (Vienna International Film Festival), I would never have thought that it could breed controversy. My feelings about it lie somewhere in between those comments. I never felt it to be boring but I also never thought it groundbreaking in any way. The film, especially in the beginning, has a light approach to the story, almost as if taking its main protagonist not too serious. The narration and chapter style enhances this impression. There are many, quite entertaining, cinematic ideas and moments, most remarkable the long "freeze" sequence and some animation scenes. I found those very fitting in a positive sense since the aim of the character was to find her own way of being. The male versus female relationship question about prospects, identity, future are discussed at length. Sexism is also a theme that creeps up. The film develops a deeper meaning toward the end while the final episode was a kind of let down experience which I don't want to elaborate, otherwise I would need to mark this with spoiler alert.

The acting of all is first class and touching, but why there is such an excitement on the side of the critics eludes me.