Sentimental Value (2025)

Joachim Trier’s film performs the magic trick of making one family’s secrets and memories feel universal, like a modern Hannah and Her Sisters with gossipy warmth and powerful underplayed emotion. It combines the satisfactions of arthouse filmmaking with the emotional wallop of great melodrama, thanks to invisible acting and Trier’s springy, playful handling of heavy themes.

The critic hails it as sublime, praising its exploration of family dynamics and the performances, especially Reinsve and Skarsgård, and the house as a central element.

The critic highlights the strong showcase for Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård, along with Trier’s insightful handling of sisterhood, trauma, and the meta relationship between cinema and reality. It calls the film a moving drama that lingers, despite occasional over-sentimentality.

The critic finds Joachim Trier’s drama a moving portrait of a family haunted by the past, centered on an estranged filmmaker father and his actress daughter. It highlights the beautifully synced performances of Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve as difficult but charismatic figures whose story becomes one of love.

Trier’s latest is moving in moments with sharp, quick-witted dialogue and offers insights into parental and sibling relationships, though it is very good rather than great compared to his earlier work. Skarsgård excels as a father unable to express himself except through his art.

The review praises the delicate performances, particularly from Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve, in exploring generational trauma and the tug between art and family. It notes the film is somewhat cleaner and less messy than Trier’s earlier work but still argues effectively for honest expression through cinema.

Trier’s sensitive sisterhood drama mines the psyches of two sisters dealing with their estranged, egotistical filmmaker father and delivers a nuanced, poignant portrait of family love and strife through excellent performances. It is thoughtful and moving, better than group therapy.

The review finds the film affecting with strong performances, particularly Skarsgård, but notes it feels somewhat cold and distant despite its themes of trauma and family.

The review praises the impeccably crafted film and strong performances, especially from Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård, but finds it overly sedate and diagrammatic rather than fully emotionally engaging. It notes Trier’s restraint but criticizes the assumption that art will automatically heal family wounds.

Trier’s sensitive sixth feature reunites him with Reinsve in a nuanced story of an actress daughter and her director father exploring family roles and the silences between parents and children. The leads bring incredible tenderness to this smart, thoughtful tearjerker that is far from mawkish.

Trier’s follow-up to The Worst Person in the World is a gorgeous, generous drama in which an egotistical director tries to reconnect with his estranged daughters by casting one in his autobiographical film. Strong performances, especially from Skarsgård and Reinsve, ground its meditation on inherited family suffering and the limits of art.

Joachim Trier’s exuberant drama follows an ageing egomaniac film director (Stellan Skarsgård) who returns to disrupt his estranged adult daughters’ lives while attempting a late-career comeback using the family home for a semi-autobiographical film. The critic finds it a baggy, self-aware comedy with cinephile in-jokes and emotional vampirism that ultimately delivers some real sentimentality and value despite its indulgences.

The critic praises the film's emotional depth and exploration of family and memory, singling out the performances and the house as a repository of history for praise.

Stellan Skarsgård gives one of his best performances as a difficult, curmudgeonly filmmaker attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Renate Reinsve) through a passion project about family trauma. The nimble, witty screenplay and strong ensemble allow the film to flow ravishingly through complex emotional terrain involving art, family psychology and the therapeutic value of creation.

The critic calls the film a resonant, mature family drama that uses a beautiful old house as a metaphor for healing and reconciliation through art. It singles out the layered dynamics between the sisters and the strong ensemble, including Elle Fanning, as a highlight of Trier’s work.

Praises the stellar performances by Reinsve and Skarsgård in Trier's sublime generational drama, noting the humanist moments and brilliant hopeful ending that resolves the family's trauma.

Trier has made his best film yet, a subtle yet sweeping tapestry of art and family that takes the breath away with its emotional gut punches and reflections on creating art from life. Outstanding performances, especially from Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård, support the focused exploration of family and cinema.

The critic praises the film's meditative quality and satisfying conclusion that captures human truth without being overly sentimental. Standout performances are highlighted, especially Stellan Skarsgård's as the estranged father.

The film stands out for its quiet, personal approach to family strife and the making of a movie, excelling through subtle conversations and character dynamics rather than big dramatic moments or spectacle.

The critic praises Trier's ability to handle intellectual ideas naturally in a textured drama about family roles and generational trauma, highlighting the strong performances especially from the cast in exploring emotional ambiguity and sibling bonds.

Trier’s most expansive film to date is a poignant exploration of fractured families and generational baggage centered on a single house; Reinsve’s raw performance captures bubbling resentment with devastating honesty.

The critic finds the family drama compelling and praises the performances, especially Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve, but notes the film is uneven due to extraneous commentary on film vs. streaming and a slow start.

The critic praises the emotional depth, powerful acting especially by Renate Reinsve, and Trier's handling of family trauma and reconciliation through art, calling it unabashedly sentimental yet effective.