Valeur sentimentale

By Mehdi Salehi Film Critic and Editor-in-Chief of "Green Smile" News Platform

"Sentimental Value" is a cinematic experience that, like a living impressionist painting, portrays emotions through fluid and enigmatic imagery. This bold work, which won the Grand Prix at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, is not merely a film-it is a philosophical inquiry into the nature of memory, time, and emotional values in the digital age. Employing a non-linear structure and multi-layered approach, the director takes the audience on an inner journey where every frame, every light, and every shadow carries meaning beyond its surface.

The cinematography, inspired by Edward Hopper's paintings, uses contrasts of warm and cold light to depict characters' inner turmoil. A scene where the protagonist stares at old photographs in a dimly lit room, with light filtering through a grimy window, alone symbolizes the entire film: a desperate quest for meaning amidst fading memories. These dreamlike (or nightmarish) images merge with minimalist, soothing music reminiscent of Arvo Pärt-a blend of meaningful silences and sparse notes that feel less like music and more like mental atmospheres.

The screenplay, with rare audacity, channels post-structuralist philosophy through concise, symbolic dialogues. When the protagonist asks a friend, "Do I construct memories, or do memories construct me?", it raises a fundamental question about personal identity. These manifesto-like dialogues are elevated by the actors' subtle, heartfelt performances. The lead actor's prolonged silences and expressive glances convey existential anxiety more powerfully than any dialogue could.

Beneath the surface, however, lies a sharp critique of today's consumerist society. Smartphone screens, flashy billboards, and opulent stores linger in the background, starkly contrasting the protagonist's search for authentic emotion. The film masterfully reveals how modernity commodifies feelings. In one striking scene, the protagonist wanders lost among endless aisles of a modern supermarket while upbeat music blares from speakers-a potent symbol of this theme.

Yet "Sentimental Value" is not without flaws. Its overly complex narrative and reliance on abstract symbolism may confuse some viewers. At times, the film seems more invested in theoretical exposition than audience connection. This is where it stumbles: perhaps its profound ideas could have been conveyed with slightly more clarity without compromising artistic value.

Nevertheless, "Sentimental Value" remains a landmark achievement in contemporary cinema. It deserves acclaim not just for its stunning visual aesthetics, but for daring to challenge conventional narrative forms and creating a cinematic language for deep philosophical expression. In an era where film increasingly leans toward commercial banality, works like "Sentimental Value" remind us that cinema can still explore the deepest layers of human experience. Like a long visual poem, it demands reflection and revisiting-each viewing unveils new meanings, inviting audiences to rethink their relationship with time, memory, and human emotion.

:::Watched at Scandinavian Film Festival:::

Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value is a deeply resonant family drama that eschews melodrama for emotional authenticity and psychological nuance. The film is centred on Nora, played with great restraint by Renate Reinsve, who is forced to confront her estranged filmmaker father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), after the death of her mother. The family home in Oslo emerges as both setting and symbol-a container for memories and scars-which Gustav hopes to immortalise through his latest cinematic project.

Trier handles the motif of inherited trauma with tact, refusing to indulge in manipulative sentimentality. Instead, the narrative unfolds gently, through carefully observed interactions and silences. Nora, a stage actress paralysed by anxiety and divided loyalties, is caught between the burdens of family history and the demands of performance. Reinsve imbues her character with a delicate sense of unease that never spills over into theatrics, while Skarsgård navigates Gustav's arrogance and regret with a similarly subtle touch. The supporting cast, specifically Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas as Nora's sister Agnes, adds depth to the film's meditation on the countless ways familial love and resentment can coexist.

The script delicately questions the ethics of artistic catharsis, as Gustav asks Nora to recreate painful family events on camera-prompting sharp consideration of the cost of using real trauma for art. Elle Fanning, as an eager Hollywood star parachuted into the family's drama, serves as both mirror and foil to Nora, further sharpening the film's self-examination of performance, legacy, and authenticity.

Visually, Sentimental Value is quietly gorgeous, its crystalline light and carefully composed frames echoing the story's sense of longing and the weight of the past. Trier's refined direction and restrained musical choices allow every emotional beat to register fully.

What endures is the film's generosity and honesty. It does not force reconciliation but gently suggests that understanding alone could be redemptive. Sentimental Value is demanding, reflective, and full of love for flawed people, confirming Trier as one of the most perceptive filmmakers working today.

Sentimental Value is about a father and his two adult daughters, each reflecting on their past family lives. The father is a film director, absorbed with a new idea for a film, one which seems to be a dramatic representation of a crucial incident in his earlier life. One daughter has acted in the past, the other is currently an actor, performing in a Chekhov play. The father introduces his daughters to a young American actor, played by Elle Fanning, whom he intends to have as the key actor in his new film, representing, it seems, one of his daughters. She may or may not be the father's latest partner. The daughters want to keep their distance both from their father and any involvement in their father's film. Cinematography and acting are of a high standard. But in the end the script doesn't hang together sufficiently well to give a coherent picture of Joachim Trier's intended theme. It looks good, it's interesting, but where's its centre?

Sentimental Value is a multi-layered masterpiece of a film that skillfully shows several generations of a family affected by both historical and personal traumas. The film focuses on two of the generations: father and two daughters living their life in modern Norway and dealing with the emotional baggage from their past in very different ways. The film honestly opens the door for us into this family house so that we see things the way they are, no character is judged or mocked here. Yet, the storytelling itself has its own twists, therefore we can get the pieces together towards the end, which makes this film even more wholesome and delicate. Amazing script, wonderful acting, great choice of music. Bravo!