Original title: Affeksjonsverdi
Norwegian • Psychological Drama • Year: 2025 • Running time: 135
Languages: Norwegian/English/French/Danish
Audience Response: 21 slips returned
- ‘Excellent’: 12 votes
- Very Good’: 5 votes
- ‘Good’: 1 votes
- ‘Satisfactory’: 3 votes
- ‘Poor’: 0 votes
Read the comments here or visit the “Sentimental Value” discussion page to join in the conversation.
Synopsis:
Sisters Nora and Agnes reunite with their estranged father, the charismatic Gustav, a once-renowned director who offers stage actress Nora a role in what he hopes will be his comeback film. When Nora turns it down, she soon discovers he has given her part to an eager young Hollywood star. Suddenly, the two sisters must navigate their complicated relationship with their father — and deal with an American star dropped right into the middle of their complex family dynamics.
A fantastic showcase for Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård, and another strong piece from director Joachim Trier, this is a moving drama that lingers long.
Emily Maskell (Empire Magazine)
Director: Joachim Trier
The Worst Person In The World (2021) / Thelma (2017) / Louder Than Bombs (2015)
Writers: Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier
Main Cast:
| Renate Reinsve | Nora Borg |
| Stellan Skarsgård | Gurstav Borg |
| Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas | Agnes Borg Pettersen |
| Elle Fanning | Rachel Kemp |
(for full cast list, additional technical information and reviews, please visit the Sentimental Value pages in IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes)
Film Notes:
A Norwegian film directed by Joachim Trier, written by him and Eskil Vogt. It was well received, with much critical acclaim, in the main competition of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, winning Grand Prix. At the 98th Academy Awards it received nine nominations and was the first Norwegian film to win Best International Feature Film. It was awarded the Nordic Council Film Prize in 2026.
Peter Bradshaw, in The Guardian, gave it three stars and called it “an entertaining drama”, while acknowledging Trier’s reputation as a revered ‘auteur’, instancing his 2021 work The Worst Person In the World starring Renate Reinsve, who also has a key role in Sentimental Value as Nora. Nora and her sister, Agnes, are the grown-up daughters of Gustave Borg, a “preening auteur” and “egomaniacal director” who returns to his former family home to make a last-gasp movie about his late mother, who committed suicide in the house. Long estranged from his family, he now has to inveigle his way back into his daughters’ lives to persuade them to let him use the house as the ‘set’ for his film, as well as getting Nora to play a part in the film.
So Bradshaw sees this as a “movie of daddy issues and cinematic adventures in the manner of Fellini and Bergman, with a gag about overhearing a therapist’s session through the heating pipes, pinched from Woody Allen’s Another Woman. Ahhh! Woody Allen! Now there’s an ‘auteur’ we couldn’t get enough of in the ‘nineties! Will you agree with Bradshaw by the end of our film that it is “sentimental in ways that are not entirely intentional, but there is value too”?