Sentimental value: Stellan Skarsgard always delivers

It feels like my movie buddy, MH, and I are making a tradition of sorts by only watching film festival films! Sentimental value is the second of two such films we experienced together in 2025. I love a good Scandi story and Stellan Skarsgard is one of my favourite actors. I was keen to see Sentimental value, too, as it had won the Grand Prix at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.

Sentimental value | General Australian release December 2025 | Viewed August 2025 | Directed by Joachim Trier | Main cast: Stellan Skarsgard, Renate Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, and Elle Fanning

Sentimental value is at its heart an exploration of generational trauma. It is a bold yet simplistic film, about two sisters, Nora and Agnes, and their father, Gustav. Nora is an actor in Oslo's National Theatre. Agnes is an academic historian, although her job mostly seems to be the family diplomat. This role is in sharp contrast to Nora who is explicitly characterised as "at least eighty percent f**ked up." The sisters' relationship is interrupted after their mother dies and their estranged father, Gustav, a once famous film-director, returns to Oslo.

The film then centres its action on the old family home, where Agnes has been living with her husband and young son. Gustav announces he has a grand plan to create one last masterpiece in his fading career, where the film's watershed moment would show suicide similar to the one his own mother committed in the house's front room. Gustav's plan is for Nora to be the lead in his film, but she refuses. Enter Elle Fanning's character, a famous American actress whom Gustav charms into taking the role, turning his masterpiece into a Netflix production spoken partly in English.

I had trouble rating Sentimental value as I could see the power in the casts' performance, especially Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgard. Reinsve shines as the sensitive theatre actor plagued by emotional turmoil. Skarsgard does a bang up job of presenting his character as a cold, self-important and uncompromising prick. Elle Fanning does what she is supposed to do: provide the contrast to Nora as an eager young starlet, taking notes and engaging in voice coaching lessons. Trier's inclusion of the real cosmetics campaign that Fanning featured in is a nifty device to hammer home the contrast between the starlet and the theatre actor.

In true Scandinavian style, there are layers of emotion in the film and a light touch when it comes to dialogue. There's some exploration of Gustav's mother's death following years of torture during World War II after she was captured as part of the Norwegian Resistance. The suicide and its impact on Gustav is assumed by the audience, as is the complex and distanced relationship Nora and Agnes have with their father and indeed Nora's emotional fragility. We assume all this turmoil stems from Gustav's absence, both physically and emotionally.

The audience knows Gustav's film is going to end in disaster, but Trier makes a somewhat surprising turn by having Fanning's character decide that she is not the right person for the role. This turn takes the film down the path of redemption for Nora and Agnes.

There's not a lot to work with as an audience member but then that is how Scandinavian films tend to go. They are light on exposition and heavy on nuance and implied meaning. I've always liked that about films from Northern Europe but it usually means there's a cognitive load for the viewer to make sense of it all. Reading other reviews, I think I've concluded that Trier has made a film about artistry as a form of emotional expression, where problems are worked through that medium of expression rather than in reality. The final scene of the film suggests the family is on the road to repair and in that sense, it's rather uplifting.

There is no doubt that the film is beautifully shot, with fine performances from all the main cast. It is poignant and rich in emotion. I just think I was looking for a tad more resolution in a film about the redemptive power of storytelling.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐