Ronit J

Sentimental Value (2025) Synopsis:

Sisters Nora and Agnes reunite with their estranged father, the charismatic Gustav, a once-renowned director who offers stage actress Nora a role in what he hopes will be his comeback film. When Nora turns it down, she soon discovers he has given her part to an eager young Hollywood star.

Sentimental Value (2025) Review:

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know very well how acclaimed and loved Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (2021) was. Sentimental Value has been receiving a comparable, if not more, amount of praise and acclaim. Having loved Trier’s Oslo Trilogy, and knowing that the film featured the story of a filmmaker, the making of a film, and his actor daughters, I was genuinely intrigued to watch this one.

The film follows Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) as they reconnect with their father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), after their mother’s funeral. Gustav is an acclaimed filmmaker looking to make a new film. He wants Nora to act as the lead. However, she refuses as a result of their strained relationship. Gustav eventually hires popular Hollywood actress Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) to star as the lead. Since the film is being shot in Norway, Gustav pretty much reenters his daughters’ lives. This leads to all of them confronting their pasts, traumas, memories, and more.

A Nuanced Mosaic of Memories, Traumas, Inheritance, Coping, and Art…

The film opens with a narrator talking about what Nora was as a child. From there, we cut to the present, where Nora is set to star as Ophelia in a theatrical production, but crippling stage fright delays her performance. However, once she’s on stage, she delivers an applause-worthy performance, which tells us how good an actor she is. Her stage fright and difficulty being intimate, as is apparent with her affair with the married Jakob (Anders Danielsen Lie), highlight her difficult childhood and her strained relationship with her father. Her younger sister, Agnes, on the other hand, seems to have a normal life. She’s married, has a kid, and looks like she has it all under control.

Gustav returns to their family home for their mother’s, his ex-wife’s, funeral. There, the three reconnect. What follows is a series of emotional episodes, montages and flashbacks, all revealing everything from Gustav’s family history, to his mother’s past, to even the house and how it all connects the Borg family. Memory, inheritance, and coping mechanisms come together in the form of artistic expression, each hinting at the very human attempt to understand each other. Gustav’s films are reflective of his mother’s anti-nazi activities and the strain it caused on him as a child. Nora’s performances betray her emotional scars resulting from a troubled mother and an absent father.

All these artistic expressions (Gustav’s films & Nora’s performances) seem brilliant on the outside. However, knowing the people they are makes them bittersweet tableaus of a complex human experience.

Art, Artist, & Human

Art plays a significant role in Sentimental Value. And I’m not just talking about films and theatrical pieces. Even a simple vase that someone bought a long time ago can hold sentimental value. Because, as human beings, we tend to ascribe a lot of value to objects around us. However, unlike the human relationships that we form, these objects don’t expect anything from us. From the stool that Gustav lies about, to a phone that Gustav uses to teach Erik (Øyvind Hesjedal Loven) how to match-cut a scene, to even the entire house that holds generations worth of stories, Sentimental Value is full of art. Even the film itself is a piece of art about remembering, understanding, and coping. Because what is art, if not a tool for humanity to remember, document, understand, and cope?

In a world plagued with AI slop, a humanist film like this that goes above and beyond to tell a deeply human story feels special. Almost like it’s reminding us that art isn’t just a distraction from our condition, but rather an important tool of expression. Because within that art lies meaning and value. For the artist, the value is in being able to express and make sense of the world around them. For the viewer, it is the meaning of being understood and heard, of understanding the community and world around us, hopefully generating empathy and more.

Every character in Sentimental Value is damaged in their own way. And yet, they never come off as cruel. Interestingly, they are all trying to make sense of their lives and the world around them. Even Rachel Kemp goes above and beyond to essay the role of Karin, because she wants to do something meaningful with her work. Blurring the lines between black and white, Joachim Trier has constructed a beautiful piece of art with Sentimental Value. I’d even go on to say this might be his best work so far (of the films I’ve watched at least).

Sentimental Value (2025) Ending Explained (SPOILERS)

Rachel backs out of the film because she doesn’t feel she can do justice to the role. However, Gustav appreciates her coming to tell him personally, praising her acting and telling her to keep working hard. He then drinks till he is drunk and collapses. Agnes and Nora rush to the hospital, finding him flirting with the nurse, which alleviates their worry.

Agnes reads Gustav’s script and researches about his mother, Karin (Vilde Søyland), trying to understand her father better. She approaches Nora and urges her to read the end. The ending plays out exactly how Nora’s own suicide attempt (which we didn’t know about yet) had in real life. Both sisters wonder how their father might have known. They open up to each other about how ‘messed up’ they are, but Agnes is less so because Nora was always there to protect her.

Gustav sells the family home, which gives him enough money to finance his film. The final scene of the film is a single take that plays out almost the same way as Gustav had narrated to Rachel. Except that Nora is playing Karin, and Erik plays the young Gustav. Once Gustav yells cut, Nora and Gustav share a look. Gustav nods approvingly at Nora, who smiles back, suggesting that their relationship is better than it was before.

Just as Gustav made the effort to try to understand his daughter through his script and his attempt to ask her to act, Nora now makes the effort to understand him by acting in his film. The film doesn’t exposit too much about their relationship, but the fact that Nora and Erik are acting in Gustav’s film suggests that there has been some healing.

Is Sentimental Value (2025) worth watching?

Yes. That’s all I’ll say. If you liked Trier’s Oslo Trilogy, I’d even go on to say that Sentimental Value is a much more mature and nuanced film compared to those three. An absolute must-watch.

In Conclusion:

Sentimental Value (2025) is a beautifully nuanced exploration of memories, art, coping, and dysfunctional relationships that’ll make you reflect upon your own life.

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