Joachim Trier’s ‘Sentimental Value’ sends Cannes swooning

By Canadian Press on May 22, 2025.

CANNES, France (AP) — It took nearly until the end of the festival, but the Cannes Film Festival has its first outright sensation.

Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” premiered Wednesday night to the kind of rapturous response that Cannes is fabled for. The film, starring Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård and Elle Fanning, marked the follow-up for Trier of his lauded 2021 film “The Worst Person in the World.”

There’s stagecraft that goes into Cannes’ famous standing ovations, which makes the timed applause reports an often inaccurate reflections of how movies are received at the festival. But the thunderous ovation for “Sentimental Value,” at 19 minutes, was, by any account, the most rousing of any film in Cannes by a large margin.

“What’s that Buñuel quote? ‘I make films for my friends?’” Trier said, addressing the crowd. “I feel you’re all my friends tonight.”

Trier’s remark, while Fanning wiped away tears, was a poignant reference to “Sentimental Value.”

Reinsve, who starred in “The Worst Person in the World,” plays the actor daughter of a well regarded filmmaker Gustav (Skarsgård) who has put moviemaking before parenting most of their lives. When he writes a script for her, she immediately refuses. Gustav instead casts a young Hollywood star (Fanning).

Much of the film is set around their old family home in Oslo, in which Gustav wants to make his film. As “Sentimental Value” proceeds, it gently unveils questions of family and home that have as much to do with art making as for fathers and daughters.

The debut of “Sentimental Value” immediately made Trier’s film a contender, if not the clear favorite, for Cannes’ top award, the Palme d’Or. Should “Sentimental Value” win on Saturday, when Cannes draws to a close, it would extend the indie distributor Neon’s unprecedent streak of Palme d’Or wins.

Neon has backed the last five Palme d’Or-winners in Cannes, including last year’s winner, the Oscar-winner “Anora.” This year, it also acquired another film that could be in the mix, Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent.”

Should “Sentimental Value” win over the jury headed by Juliette Binoche, it would be the first Norwegian film to win the Palme d’Or. Cannes draws to a close Saturday.

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For more coverage of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/cannes-film-festival

Jake Coyle, The Associated Press

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