Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: SENTIMENTAL VALUES [Cannes Film Festival 2025 - Cannes, France]
The idea of lost time but wrapping it in the guide of a meta film about the notion of connection is a noble pursuit. But in making a film about the film industry sometimes it dilutes the artifice ironically of what one is seeing. With "Sentimental Values" [Competition], director Joachim Trier creates a interesting play of family and disconnection. This one again stars Renete Reinsve who starred in his vastly superior "The Worst Person In The World." That film just was utterly heartbreaking in its progression of memory and lost opportunities, much in the same way that "The History Of Sound" accomplished this year but in a different way. "Worst Person" just had a melancholy and sadness mixed with joy that was simply beautiful. "Sentimental Values" tries to recreate that in the story of a father: Gustav (Stellan Skarsgard) who comes back into the lives of his two daughters for his own selfish reasons. Reinsve plays Nora who he wants to star in a film that is in a way for and based on her. But a lot of what is felt is supposed to be in words and actions that are acted and not organic in life.
That artifice in a way, for this reviewer, works against the film, maybe because the industry is so connected in that way. Skarsgard gives a beautifully nuanced performance of a man who can't put down his guard even for his daughters. The addition of Elle Fanning as a famous American actress who wants to connect with Gustav, whom she considers a brilliant filmmaker, brings another meta element. What is the most tellling actually is when Fanning play acts a scene to Skarsgard in the house he is supposedly writing about. The other daughter Agnes (Igna Lileaas) has her own hang-ups and she is also one of the girls in the film within a film that Guystav shot that was an award winner when she was younger. The relationship between Lileaas and Reinsve is palpable but what we don't see is loss. The mother is gone but we don't see any context of that except at one point their parents yelling off screen before their father leaves for Sweden. The ending is supposed to show the connection that only understanding brings but the essence that a certain ideal or action is accepted but not forgiven is fleeting at best. In that way, despite good performances, the resolution of "Sentimental Values" seems empty. Yet life goes on. B-
By Tim Wassberg
