A father returns home after many years. He is a successful movie director, but he has never been there for his two daughters. Now he wants to make his latest movie, and he wants his youngest daughter to star in it. He also wants to shoot the movie in the house they own. But the youngest daughter is troubled, and it turns out that the script for this movie is very personal for her father.
Sentimental Value is directed by Norway’s best, and I guess most well-known, movie director of the last 15 years, Joachim Trier. He has not made a bad movie yet, and I have liked all of his movies. So is Sentimental Value another hit from this director?
No. In fact, I think this is his weakest movie. I know this is a well-received movie, but you know, I do not care about that.
My issue with the movie is that nothing really stands out, and I found it quite boring. It is not a terrible movie, but when you know who directed it, I cannot hide how disappointed I was. I could not connect to any of the characters. I did not feel they were well written, and I never felt that I really got under their skin. Except for the father, I did not find the other characters interesting at all.
Why should I find them interesting when they feel so bland? There is no energy inside them, except for a few scenes with the father, played by the excellent Stellan Skarsgård. You know when he has that look, staring at you, and you can see that he is getting angry or frustrated, and that something harsh is about to come out of his Swedish, dirty mouth. It is not only that Swedes are stupid, but they also have dirty mouths because they eat too many Swedish meatballs.
Sentimental Value is just an ordinary family drama with some good actors, but the script lacks its own identity. You get a lot of dialogue that lacks punch, but there are at least a couple of emotional scenes toward the end because of the father’s history and what happened to his mother. Still, that was the only real emotional connection I had while watching this very ordinary movie.
For a movie directed by Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value felt flat. My favorite movie of his is still Reprise from 2006.