Review: ‘Sentimental Value’ Delivers One of the Year’s Most Tender Family Dramas
I love going into films that I know absolutely nothing about. There is something about experiencing a film that is unknown to you that makes the viewing experience much better than if you go into the film knowing really anything. That might have to do with how trailers and information about films and really anything nowadays is accessible within seconds. That said, I am so glad I went into this film and got to experience it without having any previous information on it. It made it such a wonderful experience for me. Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value is a quietly devastating masterpiece, an intimate, deeply human exploration of family, art, memory, and the fragile ties that hold people together even after years of distance. Co-written with long-time collaborator Eskil Vogt, the film showcases Trier at his most mature and emotionally incisive, blending his signature observational style with a narrative that feels both tender and painfully honest. What emerges is one of the most resonant films of the year, anchored by stellar performances and a piercing emotional core.
At the heart of the film is Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård), a once-celebrated filmmaker who left his family when his daughters were young, consumed by ambition and the pursuit of his craft. Returning years later, Gustav hopes to reconnect with his daughters, Nora and Agnes, and resurrect his career by making an autobiographical film about his mother’s traumatic past. This gesture becomes the catalyst for the film’s emotional landscape, setting the stage for a story not just about reconnecting, but about confronting the unresolved wounds left by absence and neglect.
Trier smartly centers the narrative on the daughters, whose lives have been shaped directly and indirectly by Gustav’s abandonment. Nora, a rising actress, is fiercely independent yet emotionally guarded. Agnes, more grounded and domestic, carries a quiet hurt beneath her seemingly stable life. Their contrasting paths illuminate the different ways children internalize a parent’s absence, and how those old wounds can surface unexpectedly in adulthood. The scenes between the sisters capture a lived-in history, equal parts affection, rivalry, and unspoken resentment.
Gustav’s attempt to bring his daughters into his creative process becomes a kind of emotional excavation. His film-within-the-film blurs the line between art and confession, forcing the characters, and the audience, to consider the ways creative expression can both reveal and obscure truth. Trier never paints Gustav as a villain but instead a flawed, deeply human man wrestling with regret. This element makes the film far richer than a simple narrative of redemption.
The cast is uniformly superb. Stellan Skarsgård delivers a wonderful performance as Gustav, portraying him with equal parts arrogance, vulnerability, and aching sincerity. Renate Reinsve is magnetic as Nora, her every glance carrying a storm of internal conflict. Maria Bonnevie brings a quiet, affecting warmth and sadness to Agnes. Their chemistry feels organic, shaped by long histories that the film only hints at but we instinctively understand.
Trier’s direction is subtle yet powerful. He resists melodrama, instead allowing emotion to simmer beneath the surface, revealed in small gestures, hesitant conversations, and the fragile pauses between words. The cinematography is breathtaking. Soft, naturalistic lighting and delicate framing echo the characters’ emotional states, giving the film a contemplative, almost dreamlike quality. The house itself becomes a character, its walls steeped in history, trauma, and unspoken memories that linger like ghosts.
What makes Sentimental Value so moving is its refusal to offer easy answers. The film acknowledges that reconciliation is messy, imperfect, and sometimes incomplete. Yet there remains a tenderness—a belief that connection, however fragile, is still worth fighting for. Trier suggests that healing comes not from rewriting the past, but from facing it with honesty and allowing space for vulnerability.
In the end, Sentimental Value is a profound meditation on family and the legacies—emotional, artistic, and personal—that we inherit and pass on. It’s a film that lingers with the audience, not because of grand emotional gestures, but because of its quiet truthfulness. Beautifully acted, exquisitely shot, and emotionally layered, it stands as one of Trier’s most affecting works and a standout film of the year.
⭐⭐⭐⭐½
