‘Sentimental Value’ at Cannes Film Festival is a poignant picture of father-daughter relationship

The just concluded Cannes Film Festival had a beautiful basket of movies. They were amazing and soul-stirring. One among them was Danish director Joachim Trier’s ‘Sentimental Value’. A sweet look at a family of a father and his two daughters, the work gripped me with its understated poignancy and exceptionally brilliant performances - particularly from Renate Reinsve (‘The Worst Person in the World’, 2021 Cannes) and Stellan Skarsgard (‘Andor’).

A film within a film that ‘Sentimental Values’ is, it presents the pleasure and pain the family goes through in its day-to-day existence. As artistic as it is crisp with not a scene out of place or unnecessary, it takes us through a journey that is both emotional and reflective. Packed neatly and narrated with feeling, the movie completely swept me off my feet.

Playing in the festival’s most prestigious ‘Competition’, Trier’s creation is set mostly in an Oslo home and we are taken straight to a funereal. The Berg sisters, Nora (Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsodotter Lilleaas) have lost their mother and they were close to her. It is in this situation of pain and angst that their estranged father, Gustav (Skarsgard), arrives unannounced. In the midst of all this gloom, he asks Nora to act in a movie he is planning to direct. She refuses and he is forced to take on a young Hollywood star, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning). This merely worsens the tension between Nora and her dad.

Trier has worked on ‘Sentimental Values’ with his longtime associate, Eskil Vogt and he brings to the fore how Nora and her father try and seek peace. Both are hurting and the film gently nudges us into their relationship. Trier is not judgmental and underlines Gustav’s desperation to see his family as a cohesive whole.

The movie received a 15-minute standing ovation after its premiere show - the longest at this year’s Cannes. Even Bong Joon Ho’s ‘Parasite’ - which walked away with the Palme and four Oscars some years ago - got just eight minutes. This probably tells us that the sweetest are those pictures that tell us of intimate tales.

(The writer is a senior film critic and author who has covered the Cannes Film Festival for over three decades)