Cannes Film Festival 2025: "Sentimental Value," Joachim Trier explores the cracks in a family's home

On the Croisette Thursday evening, "Sentimental Value" by Norwegian director Joachim Trier is the 18th film presented in the official competition.

Joachim Trier returns to the competition four years after Julie (in 12 chapters) , which earned Renate Reinsve the Best Actress Award in 2021. The actress stars in Valeur sentimentale, the Norwegian director's new film, which was presented at Cannes on Thursday evening, May 21. The film will be released in theaters on Wednesday, August 20.

The film opens with the presentation, like a living being, of a beautiful, typically Norwegian house, made of red wood, marked by time. It observes its inhabitants. Nora and Agnes, two cheerful little girls, try to resist the heavy atmosphere caused by their parents' arguments. When their father leaves, the atmosphere lightens, but leaves a huge void for the two sisters.

Twenty years later, the girls have grown up. Nora (Renate Reinsve), still single, has become a stage actress. Agnes ( Inga Josefine Ibsdotter Lilleaas) is a historian, married, and has one child. Their mother has just died when their father, a famous film director, returns home after many years of absence. He asks Nora to play the lead role in his next film…

After telling the love story of a thirty-something woman in Julie (in twelve chapters) , the Norwegian director this time focuses his camera on the family, and more specifically on the relationship between a father and his daughters. The figure of the failing father, already sketched in his previous film, is central here.

The director paints a portrait of a self-centered man, obsessed with his art, contemptuous, a touch misogynistic, who reveals his cracks as the story unfolds, as deep as those that have caused the old family building to collapse since its construction.

Mental illness, depression, and suicide haunt the house, weighing on its inhabitants for three generations. It will take time for Nora, the one who carries the family's tragic legacy, to make a step towards her father, thanks to the mediation of her little sister.

Like Sound of Falling, another film in competition , the house here is the eye that observes the tragedies at work for the beings who follow one another there. An allegory of the unconscious, the house keeps secrets and dramas locked within its walls, which are passed down from generation to generation. The director also offers a reflection on art and cinema, and on dramaturgy, in a mise en abyme of the scene.

Less rhythmic, less light than Julie (in 12 chapters) , Valeur sentimentale demonstrates once again the virtuosity of the Norwegian director in translating to the screen, in a limpid staging, the complexity of human relationships.

Gender : Comedy, Comedy-drama, Drama Directed by: Joachim Trier Starring: Renate Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Stellan Skarsgard Country: Memento Duration: 2h12 Exit: August 20, 2025 Distributor: France, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Denmark Synopsis : Agnes and Nora see their father arrive after many years of absence. A renowned director, he offers Nora, a stage actress, a role in his next film, but she defiantly refuses. He then offers the role to a young Hollywood star, reviving painful family memories.