Sentimental Value: Joachim Trier’s Intimate Family Portrait Captivates Cannes
The Norwegian director’s latest film explores art, family, and the difficulty of communication across generations
Joachim Trier returned to the Cannes Film Festival in triumphant fashion with “Sentimental Value” (Affeksjonsverdi), a deeply personal meditation on family, art, and the wounds we inherit across generations. The film, which premiered in competition on May 21, 2025, earned a remarkable 19-minute standing ovation and marks another collaboration between Trier and his longtime writing partner Eskil Vogt.
A House as Memory Palace
At its core, “Sentimental Value” weaves together three interconnected concepts: a film about filmmaking, a family drama, and the story of a house that serves as a repository of generational memory. The narrative centers on Nora Berg (Renate Reinsve), a stage and television actress living in her family’s Oslo home, who must confront her estranged father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), a celebrated film director working on his latest project.
The house itself becomes a character in the film, representing what Trier described as “the witnessing of human life and how quick it goes.” During the Cannes press conference, the director revealed that his own family’s house – built by his great-great-grandfather and sold during the writing process – provided the emotional foundation for exploring how places hold memory and influence us across generations.
The Art of Indirect Communication
True to Trier’s filmmaking philosophy, “Sentimental Value” eschews traditional dramatic confrontations in favour of exploring “the vulnerability of communication and the lack of ability to talk in a family.” The film suggests that art itself becomes a form of indirect communication when direct dialogue fails.
“We never really can speak directly about the important things and how we find our indirect ways of communicating,” Trier explained. “Art is a way of expressing that, because I think that’s the best shot this family has of communicating well.”
This meta-theatrical approach extends to the film’s structure, which features actors playing actors, creating what Anders Danielsen Lie called “this uncanny valley between fiction and reality in cinema.”
A Stellar Ensemble Cast
The film brings together an impressive international cast, anchored by Reinsve’s nuanced performance as Nora. Following her Cannes Best Actress win for “The Worst Person in the World,” Reinsve delivers another layered portrayal of a woman navigating complex relationships and personal growth.
Stellan Skarsgård inhabits the role of Gustav with the weight of his extensive career, bringing what he described as the “irrationality” of spontaneous performance to the character of the complicated artist-father. “If you want to be really good, you gotta act between the lines,” Skarsgård noted during the press conference.
Elle Fanning joins the ensemble as Rachel Kemp, an American actress working on Gustav’s film who becomes entangled in the family dynamics. Fanning praised Trier’s ability to create “a safe space to just be open” where actors surprise themselves daily.
The revelation of the cast is Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas as Agnes, Nora’s sister, making her feature film debut after appearing in Trier’s “Oslo, August 31st” with just one line. Her expanded role here showcases Trier’s talent for nurturing performers across multiple projects.
Tenderness as the New Punk
Perhaps the most striking aspect of “Sentimental Value” is its embrace of vulnerability and emotional openness. Trier, who began his career with a “punk background” and countercultural sensibilities, has evolved toward what he calls a new philosophy: “tenderness is the new punk.”
This shift reflects both personal growth and a response to contemporary culture. “The world is a tough place and maybe we need to be vulnerable and show characters that are vulnerable, men and women, and everyone else,” Trier explained. The film presents male characters who are emotional and struggle to integrate feeling, countering traditional masculine narratives focused on action and mission.
Cinematic Language and Structure
Visually, “Sentimental Value” employs fragmented editing with abrupt cuts to black between scenes, creating what Trier calls “moments of life” that slowly move toward intimacy while maintaining formal distance. This approach reflects his desire for “fragmentation and moments of life to slowly move towards a type of continuity” without resolving everything through conventional dramatic confrontation.
The 135-minute runtime allows for patient, contemplative pacing that trusts audiences to commit to the journey. Trier compared his approach to creating an album where “you want all the songs to be good” rather than focusing solely on plot progression.
International Recognition and Distribution
The film’s Cannes premiere represents the culmination of a long creative process that began during COVID-19 lockdown. Trier and Vogt spent months writing, deliberately moving away from external expectations to focus on personal storytelling about reconciliation, family, and time.
The strong international reception has led to widespread distribution, with Mubi acquiring rights for the UK, Ireland, Latin America, Turkey, and India, while the film will be released in France on August 20, 2025, and in Norway on September 12, 2025.
A Personal Artistic Statement
“Sentimental Value” stands as perhaps Trier’s most personal work, exploring themes that resonate universally while maintaining his distinctive Norwegian sensibility. The film continues his exploration of characters caught between different life stages, but with a new maturity that comes from his own experience as a father and his growing understanding of generational trauma.
The press conference revealed a filmmaker comfortable with his evolution, unafraid to embrace emotion and vulnerability as creative strengths. In an era of increasing polarization, Trier offers a different path forward – one that prioritizes understanding, reconciliation, and the healing power of art.
As “Sentimental Value” competes for the Palme d’Or, it represents not just another entry in Trier’s filmography, but a statement about cinema’s capacity to explore the deepest human experiences with both intimacy and universality. The film confirms Trier’s position as one of contemporary cinema’s most perceptive chroniclers of the human condition, unafraid to find beauty in life’s most complex emotional territories.
Editor in Chief of Ikon London Magazine, journalist, film producer and founder of The DAFTA Film Awards (The DAFTAs).
