Sentimental Value

TIFF REVIEW: BY KURT MORRISON

September 12, 2025

2 OUT OF 5 STARS

It’s been a few days since I’ve seen Sentimental Value. Time to digest. Time to discuss. Time to harken back to drinking an energy drink at 9:40am on a Thursday morning to keep myself awake during this movie. No - not because I was tired. But because Sentimental Value is just not for me.

Now I know, I KNOW, I am in the minority with this one but let me plead my case here as to why I think this movie isn’t as great as everyone is saying, by starting with the plot. Centered around estranged sisters Nora and Agnes Borg - played phenomenally by Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas - they are brought back to their childhood home after the death of their mother, Sissel. With emotions already running high and purging beginning to take place through the house, the two sisters are steamrolled by the arrival of their estranged father, Gustav - played by the legendary Stellan Skarsgård. Gustav, a once-famous film director who abandoned the girls when they were young, comes not to help the girls grieve the loss of their mother but to proposition Nora to star in his new autobiographical film he has been writing, that he wishes to film within the walls of the very home he abandoned decades prior. Things get more complicated when Nora turns the role down and by sheer luck and timing, Gustav meets current Hollywood starlet, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning).

Sentimental Value knows exactly what chords it wants to strike in order to get a rise out of us the viewer, and with four incredibly strong performances by Reinsve, Lilleaas and Skarsgård and Fanning, I needed to reflect on what I disliked about this film after raving about it after my screening.

I think where the film loses me is in its weakness regarding the exploration of divorce and trauma within the family, as well as its injection of what feels like a forced and long third act.

As I dove back into my thoughts about the film before writing this, I remember the opening was incredibly moving - an exploration of time and space within the walls of Borg house. It showed the girls growing up, getting into trouble, laughing, frollicking, followed by the stark reality that hits them as their parents turned on each other. It used the house as this physical metaphor for the family unit - with years passing and the house falling apart now - much like the relationship between Gustav and his kin. I understood it all, I felt it. I appreciated its cleverness.

But as the film went on, I wanted more out of the why. We know early on that Gustav’s mother killed herself in this very house and that becomes a focal point of his new script, but why was Gustav still such an asshole to those he loved? How come he was unable to keep a relationship with his daughters, knowing that they were growing up without him, much like he did without his mother? Was this person always a full blown narcissist and sociopath or did the ravages of childhood slow turn him into this Frankenstein-like monster that we see before us at age 70something?

I expected the third act to tackle more of that, as Gustav’s project begins to come to fruition then quickly falls apart. Yet again, it chooses to tiptoe around the relationships the girls have with their father, seemingly because they are happy to see him not live out this memoir on screen.

It felt like I was watching someone make a film about trauma and divorce, when they themselves had never gone through a divorce. And even writing that bothers me to say, but after a bit of digging and making sure it was appropriate for me to say that, I feel very strongly about this one point.

Renate Reinsve is truly stunning in the film, and as I have said before, continues to cement her name in the conversation as one of the best working female actors today. She is truly the rock of this whole movie, and had it not been for her performance, I think I truly would have cared less for the film. It does help that she bounces off co-star Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas so incredibly well, and their back and forth, ying-to-yang personalities feel so woven and believable that it elevates the film above its lackluster pacing and plot.

Writer/Director Joachim Trier admitted in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter that the role of Gustav was written specifically for Skarsgård, who does feel right in this role. It’s a cross between both charismatic and selfish; larger than life but also an arrogant asshole. But where I feel he excels is the fact that there is a coldness to him that lingers through each act. A indescribable distance between him and everyone around him.

An Awards season run is sure to happen for Sentimental Value along with Renate coming away with a Best Actress nomination and supporting nods for Skarsgård and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and MAYBE even Fanning in their respective categories.

This screams arthouse, festival darling and quite frankly, it was genius of the marketing department to release this post-Cannes, opening day at TIFF and get the awards conversation started early to a packed theatre of starving critics. I thought Sentimental Value was for me but in the end, I know it's much like a one-night stand. For all its supposed creativity and allure, I guess it got lost on me or maybe I am just choosing to not drink the Kool-Aid.