Does trauma live within the walls of a house? Does it stay there, rooted like a scar, even if its occupants are no longer inside? Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value opens up with narration that describes a grade school essay that protagonist Nora (Renate Reinsve) wrote when she was a child. Asked to characterize an inanimate object as she would a person, she imagined her house in Norway as a living orgasm, wondering whether her home feels pain, whether it gets lonely, whether it prefers the anger of raised voices to the silence of total emptiness. When Nora’s mother—the house’s sole occupant in the present day—passes away, the house’s “belly” again becomes full with people as they mourn the loss together. But one day, as Nora noted in her essay, the house will collapse from a fatal architectural flaw that’s been incrementally worsening for years, and the memories of the people it once held, both good and bad, will sink along with it.
The perpetuation of memory in ourselves, in our art, and in the places we live is one of just many themes explored in Sentimental Value, an understated family drama about a filmmaker father who left, and the two adult daughters who built lives without him. Nora has carried her wounds into adulthood, seemingly too deep to ever fully heal. A stage actress first introduced in a fit of nearly insurmountable stage fright, she relishes her sexual relationship with her married co-star (Anders Danielsen Lie) so she can avoid the messiness of emotional intimacy. Her little sister, Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), is a historian with a young son and husband, who was far more resolute in shaking off the abandonment of their father. Together, the sisters host their mother’s funeral reception in their childhood home, where they are confronted with the arrival of their estranged patriarch, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård). A renowned arthouse director who hasn’t made a new film in 15 years, Gustav approaches his wary eldest daughter with a gentle request: Star in his next film.
Nora refuses the part; she won’t even read the script. The meeting over which they discuss the film is just one of many fantastic scenes between any of the three lead actors, Skarsgård, Reinsve, and Lilleaas settle into the nuances of their dysfunctional family dynamic with a familiar ease that is somehow warm in spite of, or maybe because of, the many charged interactions they share. Gustav’s intentions are genuine, he clearly loves both of his daughters. But he won’t apologize for committing his life to his work—ironically, in the same breath that he speaks of how “artists need liberty,” he chastises his artist daughter, Nora, for not yet having a family. He also flippantly chides her for the kinds of performances she partakes in: flashy productions with strobing lights and gratuitous visuals that he, as a purveyor of much less fussy art, feels takes away from the beauty that can be found simply in Nora’s face.
At the Deauville Film Festival, a retrospective screening of one of Gustav’s films leads to a meeting between him and vivacious American actress Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), who is deeply affected by the film. Fanning exudes an earnest naiveté that is energetic and curious, but the true weight of Rachel’s (and Fanning’s) talents is given a soapbox when she aces a later monologue. Rachel takes the part meant for Nora, in a film within a film that is about Nora, and Gustav’s mother (who died by suicide when he was a child), and also Erik, Agnes’ son and Gustav’s grandson, who is translated into the young son of the troubled woman in the script. Shades of Ingmar Bergman and Persona become most apparent when Rachel dyes her hair brown for the film, becoming the doppelgänger of Nora, the woman who was meant to play the part. But these kinds of superficial elements are where those comparisons end, as Sentimental Value is much warmer—albeit no less devastating.
A film about inherited trauma that is a far cry from the tedious horror sometimes considering the same topic, Sentimental Value considers how a home can be both a mirror and a custodian of its occupants’ pain. Like how Gustav’s mother abandoned him in death, so too does Gustav abandon his daughters in life, leaving them with their own hang-ups and neuroses to pass on. In spite of Nora’s deep and thorny ache, and unlike the worsening crack in their home, Sentimental Value believes Nora and Gustav’s own fissure can be, if not mended, then at least reconsidered. Yet there is an emotional distance to the film that feels almost parallel to that of Nora and her father. A far less boisterous and exuberant film than Trier’s prior, The Worst Person In The World, Sentimental Value is simultaneously softer and stonier. One feels pushed away emotionally by the film, like how Nora behaves with her romantic suitors. Because of this, the film remains somewhat cold in spite of its soft-hearted optimism.
And yet, compared to the patronizing handholding that can define film with similar themes, Sentimental Value is refreshing and alive. With strong performances from its entire cast (especially Skarsgård, who nails the subtle gradations, tinged with shame and arrogance, of the returning father), Sentimental Value successfully synthesizes metaphor and nuanced character drama to convey the way suffering ripples outward—even if it’s hard to shake the feeling that, like its protagonist, it should let us in a little deeper.
Director: Joachim Trier
Writer: Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt
Starring: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning
Release Date: November 7, 2025
