{"id":247443,"date":"2025-12-23T11:08:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T11:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/247443\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T11:08:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T11:08:13","slug":"someone-called-their-dad-for-the-first-time-in-years-after-sentimental-value-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/247443\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Someone called their dad for the first time in years after Sentimental Value\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elle Fanning<\/a> and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas<\/a>, the stars of the awards-season favourite Sentimental Value, are contemplating the emotional responses to the film that they\u2019ve observed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so fascinating to meet audiences and hear their spontaneous reactions,\u201d Fanning says. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople share so much personal stuff. It\u2019s like an instant connection you have with people. It\u2019s very healing. Someone said they hadn\u2019t talked to their father in however many years and they came out of the movie and called him for the first time in so long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joachim Trier<\/a>\u2019s follow up to the Oscar-nominated The Worst Person in the World<\/a> unfolds as an unstable hybrid, hovering between spiky movie-industry satire, bruised family melodrama, Nazi-resistance ghost story and study of darkest depression. <\/p>\n

The Norwegian director\u2019s late near-neighbour Ingmar Bergman would surely have enjoyed the misery. The film was certainly a hit with the jury at this year\u2019s Cannes film festival<\/a>, who awarded it the Grand Prix \u2013 essentially second place. Multiple Oscar nominations are expected.<\/p>\n

Sentimental Value is not always agonising. Its narrative keeps veering off-road, as though Trier were testing how many tones a single movie can survive. What begins as a whimsical comedy, with a wry monologue about the Oslo house where the featured Borg family have lived for generations, swerves into a character study of a self-deluding, once-important filmmaker, Stellan Skarsgard<\/a>\u2019s Gustav.<\/p>\n

For a time the plot solemnly centres on two sisters, Agnes and Nora, played by Lilleaas and Renate Reinsve<\/a>, who are sorting through their family home \u2013 a dream house scarred by divorce, neglect, intergenerational trauma and the suicide of their paternal grandmother \u2013 only to pivot again into Hollywood farce when Rachel, Fanning\u2019s American starlet, swoops in to rescue, and complicate, Gustav\u2019s comeback bid. <\/p>\n

Skarsgard\u2019s problematic family patriarch has written a role in his new film for his daughter Nora, but she turns him down. The part, which was inspired by his own tragic mother, is offered to Rachel, who is in turn encouraged to mimic Nora. Her fame brings Netflix on board as financiers.<\/p>\n

These tonal shifts partly developed during rehearsals. Trier and his co-writer, Eskil Vogt<\/a>, typically develop their scripts in ways that blend theatre-like preparation with improvisational freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe comedy didn\u2019t resonate with me as much as the melancholy and the love my character feels for her family,\u201d Lilleaas says. \u201cShe has a desperate need for them to be whole, and she feels responsible for keeping them together, especially her sister. That influenced how I approached it, so the comedy faded, and she became more sensitive and fragile.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The 50 best films of 2025 \u2013 a full list in reverse orderOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Lilleaas, who has been acting in her parents\u2019 theatre company since childhood \u2013 including in a youthful production of Samuel Beckett\u2019s play Waiting for Godot \u2013 auditioned for more than six months to land the role of Agnes. She beat at least 100 other actors who tried out for the part. Last month she was nominated for best supporting performance at the Oscar-predicting Gotham Film Awards.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe script for Sentimental Value was like reading a novel. It felt very alive. It was well described but also left so much to the imagination,\u201d she says. \u201cAs an actor that\u2019s a gift, because there\u2019s room for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trier is very much an actor\u2019s director, having built a career exploring characters who dissect themselves from the inside out. He has always gravitated toward protagonists who probe and poke their own psyche until a fleeting insecurity mushrooms into existential catastrophe. <\/p>\n

\"SentimentalSentimental Value: Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in Joachim Trier’s film <\/p>\n

Their Nordic introspection tells them that the stakes are enormous while the world around them fails to notice. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen his movies since Reprise, in 2006,\u201d says Lilleaas, a long-time fan. \u201cMy friend showed it to me in my 20s. I thought it was so natural, intimate, funny and moving. Then I saw Oslo, August 31st in the movie theatre. That was such a big emotional experience. <\/p>\n

\u201cI always hoped I\u2019d work with him. But after Worst Person in the World I thought maybe he\u2019d leave and make movies somewhere else. Luckily, he stayed in Norway and keeps making Norwegian films.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SentimentalSentimental Value: Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Stellan Skarsgard, Renate Reinsve, Elle Fanning and Joachim Trier. Photograph: Mat Hayward\/THR via Getty <\/p>\n

The Worst Person in the World, which with those two films make up what became known as his Oslo trilogy, propelled Trier to international prominence. Also written with Vogt, his long-time collaborator, the film inverted the romantic-comedy template around Reinsve (a Trier favourite) in a breakout, Bafta-winning performance. The film was also nominated for two Oscars.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had seen The Worst Person in the World; that\u2019s how I was introduced to Joachim,\u201d Fanning says. \u201cI\u2019ve now gone back and watched the others. I fell in love with that film, as so many people did. I was a fan, but I never expected he would ask me to be in one of his movies. I didn\u2019t know if there would be a part for me. When I heard there was one for an American actress I thought, \u2018Oh, I can make myself fit that\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 27, Fanning is already a veteran of the big screen. She began her career at the age of three, when she was cast to play a younger version of her child-star sister, Dakota<\/a>, in the Sean Penn film I Am Sam, from 2001. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was just there, and I do look like my sister, and that was that,\u201d she told The Irish Times<\/a> in 2011. \u201cI don\u2019t remember much of it, only flashes. But I remember I was up for it because I got to swing on a swing. I didn\u2019t even know there was a camera rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Playing a movie star, you can fall into cliche<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Elle Fanning<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fanning broke through with her role in the JJ Abrams film Super 8<\/a>. She has subsequently served on the main jury at Cannes and collaborated with Sofia Coppola on Somewhere<\/a> and, alongside Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell, on Coppola\u2019s unsettling western The Beguiled<\/a>. She shared the screen with Angelina Jolie in Maleficent<\/a>. Her comic performance as the empress Catherine in the TV series The Great<\/a> earned her Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. <\/p>\n

\"ElleElle and Dakota Fanning in 2002, soon after they appeared in the Sean Penn film I Am Sam. Photograph: Steve Granitz\/WireImage <\/p>\n

After a scarcely believable 24 years in the business, she now seems close to unavoidable.<\/p>\n

Fanning was shooting Predator: Badlands, the box-office smash in which she teamed up with a Disneyfied intergalactic marauder, when she heard about Trier\u2019s film.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started crying reading the script,\u201d she says. \u201cThe description of the final shot floored me. I had to read it quickly, because I was signed on another film and needed to rehearse soon. I read it that night and did a Zoom with Joachim the next morning. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that I had to go straight to Norway and start rehearsing. It was a whirlwind. Very much like Rachel herself going there for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have said yes to anything if he was directing. I was excited to tap into something I hadn\u2019t done before. And being on a set where everyone speaks Norwegian was actually a relief: I couldn\u2019t eavesdrop even if I wanted to, so it gave me tunnel vision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fanning\u2019s bond with her sister Dakota, star of the Twilight films and The Alienist, was another reason to say yes. \u201cWatching the sisters\u2019 dynamic articulated so clearly \u2013 how the protector becomes the protected \u2013 made me think about my own sister,\u201d she says. \u201cIt resonated so deeply. Joachim really captured what it feels like to grow up beside someone who shapes you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SistersSisters Elle and Dakota Fanning photographed in New York in 2024. Photograph: Dimitrios Kambouris\/Getty <\/p>\n

In Sentimental Value, Fanning digs deep for a character who could easily be portrayed as an annoying Hollywood interloper.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying a movie star, you can fall into cliche,\u201d she says. \u201cYou know, vapid, one-note, comic relief. But Joachim wanted her to be complex: flawed, struggling with her career, but also brave, kind and curious. The facade fades when she gets to Norway, and she becomes much more vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film is similarly tolerant of all its characters. As Sentimental Value twists and turns, even the reprehensible Gustav softens around the edges. <\/p>\n

\u201cI kept seeing these characters as lost children looking for their parents,\u201d Lilleaas says. \u201cWhen Agnes realises her father is a lost boy who never learned to express himself, it\u2019s heartbreaking. I carried that with me for the whole shoot.\u201d<\/p>\n

One can understand why an audience member rushed out to phone Dad.<\/p>\n

Sentimental Value is in cinemas from St Stephen\u2019s Day<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, the stars of the awards-season favourite Sentimental Value, are contemplating the emotional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[11519,434,47642,18,13790,117,129195,2215,19,129194,17,34621,34622,95109],"class_list":{"0":"post-247443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-cannes-film-festival","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-dakota-fanning","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-elle-fanning","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-eskil-vogt","15":"tag-for-you","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-inga-lilleaas","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-joachim-trier","20":"tag-renate-reinsve","21":"tag-stellan-skarsgard"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115768572002290380","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}