Sentimental Value

Reinsve seems to give nothing away and yet there’s not a scene she’s in where we’re not clued into Nora’s emotions. The acting is almost invisible. Nora, it becomes clear, is the mirror image of her father: giving free rein to her emotions only under the cover of the art.

The characters are so fleshed-out, the diction so lived-in, the backstories and present stories so engaging. Their conversations seem less like scripted scenes than real moments lucky to have been captured. In creating a relatively small and recognizable film that can feel revelatory, Trier shows sleight of hand that could only belong to a young veteran at the height of his career.

Sentimental Value is an affecting look into a fractured family. Art and domestic life intertwine with each other, inform each other and perhaps support each other more than is at first apparent, leading to an ending that provides a satisfying union of the two realms.

Reinsve and Skarsgard work repressed magic in each scene they share—exploding on occasion, but still never directly confronting the deeper issues involved.

It’s a slowly unfurling film, full of words and recriminations in the manner of Scandi master Ingmar Bergman, but with a good deal more dark humour.

The film’s multi-layered structure supports a familiar but often profoundly affecting tale of intergenerational family conflict.

It’s a baggy comedy, sentimental in ways that are not entirely intentional, but there is value, too.

‘Sentimental Value’ opens with a family retrospective, the main focus being their lifelong home—containing the objects that give the film its title—which has a significant flaw in its foundation. A large crack is visible inside. While there may not be a threat of the structure splitting in two, it's impossible not to notice that something is wrong. From this premise, Joachim Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt ironically construct their first masterpiece. Through a profound study of a family fractured by resentment and abandonment, these filmmakers give us one of the most moving films of the year, exploring cinema itself as a way of understanding and communication between human beings. The art of working with pain; the pain of making art. It’s, without a doubt, 2025’s best movie.

Drowning in Depth: Why Sentimental Value Impressed Me More Than It Moved Me I have very mixed feelings about Sentimental **** one hand, it is clearly a serious, ambitious and deeply artistic film. Joachim Trier is not trying to make something light or easily digestible here. The film deals with family, memory, art, performance, emotional inheritance and the strange way cinema can become a tool for processing pain. That is also why I am not surprised it has been so highly praised at festivals. It premiered at Cannes, won the Grand Prix, and has been widely celebrated for its performances and emotional **** that is also where my problem with the film begins.From the very start, Sentimental Value feels like it wants to be deep. And to be fair, it is deep. The issue is that it stays in that same heavy emotional register almost the entire time. A great film, like a great song, often knows how to take you in and out. It has highs and lows. It lets you breathe, then pulls you back under. This film throws you into the deep end immediately — and then somehow the pool becomes an ocean, and the ocean just keeps getting deeper.That can be powerful. But it can also become **** me, the film sometimes felt more like an artistic exercise than an emotionally natural experience. It is a meta-film — a film about making a film — and I understand why that kind of structure appeals to critics, film festivals and people who love cinema as an art form. But I am less convinced that it lands with the same force for an average viewer. Not because the average viewer is stupid — that would be a lazy argument — but because emotional depth alone is not enough. A film still has to carry **** strongest part of Sentimental Value is without question the acting. The performances are phenomenal. Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård and the rest of the cast deliver the kind of restrained, layered acting that can easily win major awards. The film is about theatre, cinema and performance, and there is something almost fitting about how much it relies on actors who can hold silence, discomfort and emotional tension without overplaying it. The acting skill on display is genuinely **** soundtrack also works well. It adds weight to the scenes and helps deepen the emotional atmosphere without feeling cheap or manipulative. The plot itself is strong too, especially in the way it uses foreshadowing and emotional clues. You can feel that the film is carefully constructed, and because it presents itself as an artistic journey from the beginning, you naturally become more alert to symbols, echoes and hidden **** the pacing is where the film loses **** beginning works. The ending works. But the middle — especially the second quarter — feels drawn out. At times I was confused about where the story was going, and not in an intriguing way. More in the sense that the film seemed to linger without giving enough movement back. Since much of the film takes place with the same characters, in the same emotional spaces, and often in similar locations, it starts to feel static.Honestly, I was bored for long stretches.That sounds brutal, but it is true. I could feel my eyes getting heavier as the film went on, and I was not the only one. In the cinema, I noticed people adjusting their reclining seats back up, almost as if they were trying not to fall asleep. That says something. A film can be artistic, intelligent and well-acted — and still be tiring to sit through.I also struggled with the scene transitions. They often felt abrupt, maybe deliberately so. Perhaps Trier wanted to create a dramatic, fragmented rhythm that mirrors the emotional fractures in the story. But for me, it hurt the natural flow of the film. Instead of pulling me deeper in, it sometimes pushed me **** my final feeling is conflicted.Sentimental Value is not a bad film. Calling it bad would be lazy and unfair. It is too well-acted, too carefully made and too thematically rich for that. But I also do not think greatness should be confused with heaviness. The film has depth, yes, but it sometimes lacks modulation. It is emotionally intelligent, but also emotionally exhausting. It is beautifully performed, but not always beautifully paced.I understand why critics love it. I understand why festivals reward it. I even understand why some people will find it **** for me, Sentimental Value was a film I respected more than I enjoyed. It is powerful in parts, impressive in craft, and carried by extraordinary performances — but it also left me feeling distant, tired and slightly outside the emotional experience it was trying so hard to create.

I'm a fan of the Scandinavian style in general, but there's a difference between 'understated' and 'not saying anything at all.' While the actors did what they could with what they had to work with, I found the film to be superficial. Despite the small cast, you hardly get to know any of the characters, and several elements, such as having a narrator or the use of CGI or the script which is supposedly so amazing, are barely touched upon and then discarded. And the 'happy ending' to me felt quite hollow.

It's at most a fragmented film exploring family member's detachment, alienation, friction through history, generations and one another. The film doesn't connect well and leaves lots of holes that need the audience to connect the dots. While it does arouse sentiments on audience, it leaves raw darkness on watchers as well.

I didn’t like the film very much; I found it overly artsy and boring. I fell asleep several times. I think the film doesn’t communicate well with a more diverse audience.