Sentimental Value

as much as i haven't really enjoyed the likes of LOUDER THAN BOMBS or THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD they did feel like joachim trier movies, albeit watered down, oft-misguided versions of what once made him seem like a vital voice in the making. in this one, i'm not sure he's even recognisable. if it were french, you could easily mistake it for later career assayas (someone got called a 'tiktok troll' in earnest and i gagged with a second hand embarrassment i usually reserve for olivier), or koreeda that one time he made a french movie (alas, no ethan hawke here to rescue proceedings). agreeable perfectly-manicured festival fare that'll give middle class audiences chuckles and tears in all the right places, but doesn't amount to anything less banal and toothless than del toro's FRANKENSTEIN (which i reference because they both end with a similarly tidy father-child catharsis in the wake of his confessional, and that is quite funny to me). there's a clip from one of skarsgard's films which works deliciously as parody of a certain kind of award-baiting WWII fluff, but then the film essentially does the exact same thing later because trier doesn't have nearly as much self-awareness as he thinks he does.

i will say that as with every trier film the performances carry it to a point. i reserve particular praise for fanning: she's uncomfortable in a role that only a middle-aged male european director would ever invent (at least they don't sleep together here), but her character is meant to be uncomfortable in her role too so it works, and she exudes an unconditional compassion for everyone around her which i'm not sure their mundane, writerly family traumas really deserve, but lights up the screen nonetheless.

aside from fanning, the biggest reaction this got from me was the way skarsgard cleans up a table around the 1h15m mark, absolute sicko behaviour.