M, 135 minutes

5 Stars

Review by © Jane Freebury

Long, long winters in confined spaces have no doubt fostered a tendency in Scandi film and theatre to turn a penetrating gaze on relationships close to home. This sensitive and intricately constructed drama about family ties also hails from the far north of Europe. Up where, it must be said, the psychological drama has reached a zenith of intensity on both stage and screen.

Home in this new film from Joachim Trier is a storeyed wooden house standing in a leafy summer garden. As a repository of family memories, both what is secret and what is generally known, its presence dominates the opening frames. It has been the family home for generations, bearing silent witness to joy and sadness of grandparents long gone, and to the end of the union that bore sisters Nora (Renate Reinsve), now a successful stage actor, and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), a researcher who is married with a young son.

The death of their mother, a psychotherapist who saw her clients at home, has brought life and noise back to the rambling old mansion. The silence is gone now that mourners gather, and it is full of life again after a long interregnum. The sisters’ father Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgard, never better) has just arrived too. He had skipped the church service but been in time for the wake. Whilst there, he helps himself to a pair of speakers he hadn’t taken with him when he left to live in Sweden long ago. Agnes manages the difficult reunion with ease, but elder sister Nora stands at a hostile remove. How can father and daughter possibly reconcile?

A complex family portrait rendered with deft brush strokes …

In no time, we have the gist of the dynamics. The absent father returns but his daughters, Nora in particular, resent his reappearance as though all’s well and accounted for. Gustav is unrepentant and an irrepressible old flirt, though he may now be coping with angina and his career as a cinema director is a chapter closed.

Or has it just stalled? Gustav has found renewed creative vitality in his latest project, a drama that has been inspired by the lives of the women in his family. He wants Nora for the lead, but she refuses. At a retrospective of his films held at a festival in France he encounters a young American actress, Rachel (Elle Fanning), a sweet fan of his work, and offers her the lead role instead.

From the charged scenes of Nora’s stage fright at the beginning to its gentle closure, Sentimental Value renders a complex family portrait with deft brush strokes. There are swift, dramatic transitions between scenes, moments of contemplation as a still camera rests on a character’s face, and there are dreamy shots as the camera goes wide to drink in the beauty of the locations. It is thrilling how well Danish Norwegian director Trier and his collaborators, including co-writer Eskil Vogt and editor Olivier Bugge Coutte, have held all the elements together.

and a breezy touch, a take-it-or-leave-it defiance

Besides this, with scenes set in Deauville, France, and cheeky references to arthouse classics that are unsuitable for children, Sentimental Value contains a strand that meditates on cinema and the future in store in a world of streaming platforms. It is no surprise to read that the director, who uses the potential of the medium for all its worth, grew up in a family of filmmakers. At the same time, it is intriguing to read that he was once a skateboarder who shot films about this sport in his youth.

The last time Trier and Reinsve worked together, they came up with The Worst Person in the World, another drama with a playful title about a character with some serious issues. It was also a deft turn, with a spirited tone and a terrific central performance.

Trier tells these serious stories in a distinctively breezy way. It could even be a take-it-or-leave-it defiance. Sentimental Value exudes this breeziness, with its throwaway title and compelling performances, yet light touch. After all, what is of value to one person, may be trash for another. Like the red glass vase, surely ugly, that Nora retrieved when she and Agnes clear out the shelves and cupboards of their old family home. When it comes to what really matters, meaning is where you find it.

First published in the Canberra Times on 24 December 2025. Jane’s reviews are also published on Rotten Tomatoes