Sentimental Value
Starring Stellan Skarsgärd, Renata Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lileaas
M
4/5
Nominated for seven Golden Globes, Sentimental Value is a comfortable but poignant Norwegian drama full of rich dialogue, nuanced characters and authentic, moving performances, but it’s also an overlong shadow of a sixties classic.
Famous filmmaker Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgärd) returns to Norway to film his dream project and reconnect with his estranged daughters Nora (Renata Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lileaas) in the process.
Skarsgärd plays Gustav as an arrogant but good-humoured, well-meaning man who can only truly connect with people through his art. Reinsve is remarkable as Nora, playing a woman palpably weighed down by anxiety and self-doubt who bursts into life on the stage. Elle Fanning plays Rachel Kemp, a perky but conflicted American actress who Gustav casts in his film (and treats like a surrogate daughter) after Nora refuses.
Sentimental Value has some stunning shots and clever music choices, and draws clear inspiration from Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 classic Persona. Nora is a talented stage actress who suffers debilitating stage-fright, and Persona’s Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullmann) is an actress who suddenly turns mute on-stage. Both films address the process of moviemaking and feature a beautiful house as the setting for deep psychological introspection and revisiting past tragedy.
The framing device of Gustav’s screenplay, informed by another framing device of Gustav’s mother Karin, generates a little too much detachment within the narrative, even as the plot-threads and themes of intergenerational trauma come together well by the end. 133 minutes is an awfully long time for such a low-impact narrative, and I nearly forgot Nora was in the movie after a long absence. Persona is much darker (literally; it’s black-and-white), but shorter and more focused.
An awards darling and a touching character study that didn’t quite grab me, Sentimental Value is playing in select Victorian cinemas.
– Seth Lukas Hynes
