Catherine Cohen Archives

Review: ‘Sentimental Value’ (2025), starring Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning

September 30, 2025

by Carla Hay

Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in “Sentimental Value” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“It Was Just an Accident”

Directed by Joachim Trier

Norwegian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Norway, Sweden, and France, the dramatic film “Sentimental Value” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A famous filmmaker plans to end his long hiatus by writing and directing a biographical movie about his mother, and this film project opens up long-festering wounds between the filmmaker and his two estranged adult daughters.

Culture Audience: “Sentimental Value” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Joachim Trier, and compelling dramas about how families deal with their family histories.

Stellan Skarsgård and Elle Fanning in “Sentimental Value” (Photo by Kasper Tuxen Anderson/Neon)

“Sentimental Value” is an absorbing character study and impressive cinematic achievement in showing layers of a complicated relationship between a filmmaker and his two estranged adult daughters. The acting performances are top-notch. And the movie will keep viewers invested and curious in how the story is going to end.

Directed by Joachim Trier, “Sentimental Value” was co-written by Trier and Eskil Vogt. The movie had its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix Award (second place) for movies in the In Competition main slate. “Sentimental Value” has since made the rounds at other film festivals in 2025, including the Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival. “Sentimental Value” is Norway’s entry for Best International Feature Film for the 2026 Academy Awards.

“Sentimental Value” begins with a visual montage showing slices of life in the history of a family with the surname Borg in Oslo, Norway. (The movie was filmed on location in Norway, Sweden, and France.) A voiceover says that when Nora Borg was in the sixth grade, she was asked to write an essay about any object. Nora chose to take the perspective of the family’s two-story house, which has been in the Borg family for several generations.

In her essay, Nora wondered if the house preferred to be full and noisy or empty and quiet. Nora came to the conclusion that the house preferred to be full. Nora’s paternal grandfather noticed that the house also has crack in a wall that is causing the house to slowly sink. It’s at this point you know the house is a symbol for what the Borg family could become.

Nora’s parents—filmmaker Gustave (played by Stellan Skarsgård) and psychiatrist Sissel (played by Ida Marianne Vassbotn Klasson, seen in flashbacks)—got divorced before Nora and her younger sister Agnes were teenagers. This fracture in the Borg family would have long-lasting effects that still haunt the family. Gustave abandoned the family and remained out of the lives of Nora and Agnes for many years.

Nora (played by Renate Reinsve), a never-married bachelorette who is now in her late 30s, grew up to become an actress working in theater and television. Nora gets leading lady roles, but she’s not so famous that she’s a household name. An early scene in the movie shows Nora having a panic attack before she goes on stage to perform in a play, with some comedic things that happen backstage in the frantic efforts to get Nora to perform on stage.

Nora’s younger sister Agnes Borg Pettersen (played by Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), who’s about two or three years younger than Nora, works as a history researcher. Agnes is married to a nice man named Even (played by Andreas Stoltenberg Granerud), who is a loving and supportive husband and father. Agnes and Even have an adorable and bright son named Erik (played by Øyvind Hesjedal Loven), who’s about 7 to 9 years old during this story, which takes place over the course of about one year.

Not only do Nora and Agnes have different lifestyles, but they also have different personalities. Nora is confrontational, stubborn, and likes being a non-conformist. Agnes is non-confrontational, willing to compromise, and likes having a traditional life. Nora loves being an actress, in contrast to Agnes, who was a child actress and gave it up years ago because she didn’t like acting. Their father Gustav cast Agnes in a particular movie which proved to be Agnes’ last movie and the movie that has been considered Gustav’s greatest achievement. (“Sentimental Value” has more details about this fateful movie.)

It’s eventually revealed that Nora has issues with intimacy and trust that have a lot to do with her childhood. She has a married lover named Jakob (played by Anders Danielsen Lie), who is an actor co-starring with her in the theater production that is shown in the beginning of “Sentimental Value.” In a scene where Nora and Jakob are in bed together after having sex, he comments on how she doesn’t like to cuddle, and she tells him that she’s glad that he’s married so she doesn’t have to commit to him.

Gustav suddenly and unexpectedly comes back in to the lives of Nora and Agnes after the death of Sissel. Gustav shows up unannounced and uninvited at the family house during the wake after Sissel’s funeral. After Gustav and Sissel divorced, he let Sissel have the house, but she never got around to filing the paperwork to get legal ownership of the house.

Nora and Agnes know that Gustav technically still owns the house, and he could very well sell it, because he has no intention of living there again. The sisters are wary of Gustav and why he is really back in their lives. Nora’s resentment of Gustav is angry, while Agnes’ resentment is sad and more willing to possibly forgive.

It turns out that Gustav has a motive for this uneasy reunion: In a private conversation with Nora, Gustav tells her that he’s decided to end his years-long hiatus from filmmaking by writing a movie about his mother. Gustav also plans to direct the movie. He tells Nora that he wants her to have the starring role of his mother. Nora flatly and immediately refuses and reminds him that he’s unreliable because he’s often drunk.

A short while after this rejection, Gustav goes to the Deauville Film Festival in France, where he is being honored with a retrospective tribute. He does a Q&A after the screening of his movie that starred Agnes, where she played a child named Anna who has a heartbreaking separation from someone close to her. Gustav gets an enthusiastic and warm reception from the film festival audience.

In the audience at this screening and Q&A is an American actress named Rachel Kemp (played by Elle Fanning), who is an ardent fan of Gustav. Rachel is very famous but is known for doing lightweight movies. She wants to change the direction of her career by doing more artistic films so she can be taken more seriously as an actress. Rachel is a vibrant free spirit who is a refreshing counterpoint to moody and complex Nora.

During the Deauville Film Festival, Rachel invites Gustav to have dinner with her and some members of her clingy entourage, which includes Rachel’s publicist Nicky (played by Catherine Cohen) and Rachel’s agent or manager Sam (played by Cory Michael Smith), who might or might not be Rachel’s lover. (“Sentimental Value” leaves it open to interpretation.) The dinner party continues on a beach, where Gustav is charmed by Rachel’s constant flattery.

Gustav tells Rachel about his movie in development and says the movie is on hold. Rachel correctly guesses that Gustav needs financing. Because Rachel makes it so obvious that she wants to work with Gustav, and she has the type of star power to attract investors, it isn’t long before Gustav decides to make Rachel the star of the movie. He invites her to Norway to visit the family house, which will be a centerpiece in Gustav’s film.

The rest of “Sentimental Value” shows what happens during the process of getting Gustav’s film made. Family secrets and hard feelings, which have long been buried, come to the surface. And you don’t need to be a therapist to predict how Nora feels about Rachel getting the type of attention that Gustav never showed Nora and Agnes. Rachel is star-struck by Gustav and doesn’t really know the side to him that was a neglectful father.

Gustav’s mother died in a tragic way that he wants recreated in his movie. (The details won’t be mentioned in this review.) This recreation is the cornerstone of some of the most impactful moments in “Sentimental Value.” These moments can be tremendously somber or darkly comedic.

“Sentimental Value” also traces other aspects of the Borg family history. The movies shows glimpses of Gustav as a young adult (some flashback scenes feature Skarsgård with de-aging visual effects) and how he was affected by the death of his older sister Karin Irgens, who was executed for spreading “anti-Nazi propaganda.” Gustav can be a self-absorbed jerk, but the movie shows a lot of underlying emotional pain in his life that has a lot to do with why he is the way that he is.

Because there are so many flashback scenes in “Sentimental Value,” several actors portray the Borg family members at different stages in their lives. Nora as a baby is portrayed by Ibi Trier. Iben Policer Havnevik and Irma Trier portray Nora from about 5 to 8 years old. Olivia Thompson has the role of Nora as a tween. Julie Østhagen portrays Agnes at about 3 or 5 years old. Ida Atlanta Kyllingmark Giertsen depicts Agnes as a tween.

Emmet Øverland Crompton has the role of Gustav as a child. Aasmund Almdahl portrays Gustav as a teenager. Knut Roertveit and Nicholas Bergh depict Gustav as a young adult. Sigrid Lorentzen Abelsnes has the role of Karin as a child. Vilde Søyland depicts Karin as an adult. Eiril Tormodsdatter Solberg portrays Karin’s sister Edith as a child. Mari Strand Ferstad has the role of Edith as an adult.

Although all of the principal cast members give admirable performances in “Sentimental Value,” Skarsgård and Reinsve are the standouts for their realistic and soul-piercing depictions of Gustav and Nora, who are more alike than this father and daughter would care to admit. “Sentimental Value” has poignant observations about how the best and worst of family relationships can be repeated and passed down through generations. The house is like a silent character that has witnessed much of the Borg family’s history and faces an uncertain future.

Reinsve also starred in “The Worst Person in the World,” the Oscar-nominated movie that was directed by Trier and written by Trier and Vogt. (Norwegian actor Lie was also in “The Worst Person in the World,” where his role was much bigger than it is in “Sentimental Value.”) “The Worst Person in the World” (released in Norway in 2021 and in other countries in 2022) was about the personal journey of an indecisive bachelorette who also has a tense relationship with her father, but the movie is less about family and more about choices that the protagonist makes in her love life.

“Sentimental Value” is all about family and is a multifaceted film that invites viewers to wonder if family dysfunction is a curse that can be stopped in this particular family. The cast members bring such depth to their performances, viewers might wonder if “Sentimental Value” is based on a true story. (It’s not. “Sentimental Value” is a fictional story from an original screenplay.) The movie uses “story within a story” techniques that could have been gimmicky but are so creatively filmed, they make “Sentimental Value” a much richer and more meaningful viewer experience that will stay with viewers long after the movie is over.

Neon will release “Sentimental Value” in select U.S. cinemas on November 7, 2025. The movie was released in Norway on September 12, 2025.

Review: ‘Dating & New York,’ starring Francesca Reale, Jaboukie Young-White, Catherine Cohen and Brian Muller

September 24, 2021

by Carla Hay

“Dating & New York”

Directed by Jonah Feingold

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the romantic comedy “Dating & New York” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Asians and Latinos) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: After meeting through a dating app, a man and a woman in their mid-20s decide to become “friends with benefits” until one of them falls in love with the other person and wants more of a romantic commitment.

Culture Audience: “Dating & New York” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in overly talkative romantic comedies that are extremely formulaic and not very funny.

“Dating & New York” is proof that the only thing worse than a dull and unoriginal romantic comedy is a dull and unoriginal romantic comedy that thinks it’s exciting and creative. This annoying movie reeks of smugness, when it’s really just a worse version of the mediocre 2011 romantic comedies “No Strings Attached” (starring Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman) and “Friends With Benefits” (starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis). Each of the three movies is about two good-looking young people who have a sexual relationship while trying not to fall in love with each other. However, “Dating & New York” (written and directed by Jonah Feingold) takes it to irritating levels by trying to be too cute for its own good.

How cutesy does “Dating & New York” want to be? In the very beginning of the film there’s a voiceover narrator (a role played by Jerry Ferrara) and animation (as if this is a Disney fairytale), with the narrator saying this monologue: “Once upon a time, in a magical kingdom known as New York City, in a city that doesn’t sleep, but sleeps around a lot, a land of dollar pizza and crowded subways, there lived two millennials cursed with the paradox of choice.”

Side note: A pizza slice that only costs a dollar in New York City? What year was this screenplay written? Anyone who’s spent time recently in New York City can spot the phoniness of the “dollar pizza” line because it’s been several years since a slice of pizza in New York City cost only one dollar.

Viewers soon find out that the story’s two central characters, who are both in their mid-20s, aren’t very cursed at all and are actually quite spoiled and privileged. These two don’t have much “paradox of choice” struggles going on, unless you consider it a “paradox of choice” when they have to decide what kind of attitude they want to have in any given hour: self-pitying whiner or self-absorbed hipster. You get the feeling that Feingold wrote the characters this way because he knows a lot of people who think of themselves as adorable and funny, but they actually lack self-awareness in how insufferable they are with their entitled and out-of-touch attitudes about what life’s real problems are.

Milo Marks (played by Jaboukie Young-White), who was born and raised in New York City, lives rent-free in the spacious and modern Upper West Side apartment of his mother and her boyfriend, who aren’t home very much because they travel a lot for their jobs. Milo doesn’t seem to have a job. However, the movie shows that he’s an aspiring stand-up comedian with no talent who can only get occasional gigs performing in small places with hardly anyone there to see him. Here’s a sample line from his stand-up comedy act when he compares romantic relationships to phone billing plans: “Rollover feelings are like rollover minutes.”

Wendy Brinkley (played by Francesa Reale), who becomes Milo’s “best friend with benefits,” isn’t shown working at all. She’s got loads of snappy one-liners and comments that are supposed to show that she has a “firecracker” personality, but it’s all so superficial. The movie doesn’t even bother mentioning what Wendy does for a living or what she wants to do with her life. That’s how hollow her character is, although Reale is one of the better actors in this cast.

Milo and Wendy have met on a dating app called Meet Cute. Viewers first see Milo and Wendy together on their first date at an East Village bar called Lilo’s. Here’s a sample of their conversation: Wendy asks, “What is your baggage?” Milo answers in a sarcastic manner, “I have no baggage. Basically, I tell people I’m just like you, but perfect.”

Milo then says in all seriousness why he has problems keeping a steady relationship: “I create this fantasy version of a person … And a lot of the time, I don’t like the real person as much as the fantasy person.” Milo essentially tells Wendy on this first date that he usually ends his relationships when he becomes disappointed or bored with the person who stops meeting his fantasy expectations.

Most people with some modicum of self-respect wouldn’t want to get involved with someone who’s obviously very emotionally immature. However, Wendy is attracted enough to Milo that she sleeps with him on their first date. Milo is the type of person who says, “Only in New York can you make out with someone in front of a bunch of garbage and it’s still romantic.”

After Milo and Wendy spend the night together, they don’t keep in touch with each other for several weeks. Milo is a little surprised, but his feelings aren’t that hurt since he and Wendy don’t know each other well enough to feel like it’s a total snub. The voiceover narrator explains that Milo and Wendy both moved on and casually dated other people. Viewers find out later that the narrator is a doorman named Cole Navatorre, who works in Milo’s apartment building and ends up giving Milo some advice on Milo’s love life.

And because this is a romantic comedy that’s a cesspool of clichés, it should come as no surprise that Milo and Wendy both have best friends who end up dating each other. Milo’s best friend is an ambitious J.P. Morgan financial analyst named Hank Kadner (played by Brian Muller), while Wendy’s best friend is a fast-talking neurotic named Jessie Katz (played by Catherine Cohen), who has been Wendy’s closest confidante since they were students at Wesleyan University. Whatever Jessie does for a living remains a mystery. This movie seems to have a problem showing women with careers.

Hank and Jessie have their “meet cute” moment when Hank and Milo are at a trendy bar, and Jessie comes over to talk to them. Milo hasn’t seen Wendy in several weeks at this point. Milo spots a model-esque woman named Olivia (played by real-life model Taylor Hill), who’s sitting alone at the bar counter. Even though he hasn’t met Olivia yet, Milo says to Hank and Jessie out loud (with a lot of wishful thinking) that she’s his future wife. Jessie encourages Milo to start talking to this mystery beauty.

Milo gets the courage to approach Olivia. They introduce themselves to each other. The conversation starts off friendly and a little flirtatious, until Olivia mentions that she has a boyfriend. As soon as Milo hears that Olivia is already romantically involved with someone else, he walks away from her while she’s talking. How rude. It’s an example of how Milo thinks he’s a better catch than he really is.

After Milo abruptly cut off his conversation with Olivia, she comes over to where Milo is to scold him for being so disrespectful. It doesn’t phase him too much. What does catch him off guard is finding out that Jessie is Wendy’s best friend. And what do you know, here comes Wendy to walk into Milo’s life again. Wendy is also still single and available, the sparks are still there between Milo and Wendy, and so they pick up where they left off.

Milo soon finds out that Wendy wants a “best friends with benefits” relationship. She even makes a “Best Friends With Benefits” contract that Milo reluctantly signs. Wendy constantly lectures Milo that they’re better off not falling in love with each other because it would ruin their relationship, while Milo wants to leave open the possibility that they can fall in love. In other words, the movie shows very early on which person in this relationship is going to “catch feelings” and fall in love with the other person first.

Hank and Jessie, who have more traditional views of romantic relationships, both think the “Best Friends With Benefits” contract is a bad idea. Hank and Jessie’s romance has a typical trajectory, while Milo and Wendy’s relationship has stops, starts and some arguments in between. Hank and Jessie argue too, but not as often as Milo and Wendy have conflicts. Jessie and Hank are also the type of couple who will make up easily and end their arguments with passionate kissing. Wendy doesn’t believe in showing public displays of affection in a “best friends with benefits” relationship.

“Dating & New York” puts Milo and Hank in scenarios that try to make them look “progressive hipsters,” but it all just looks like contrived crap. For example, there’s a scene where Milo and Hank talk about their love lives while they’re at a spa, getting facials while wearing pink bathrobes, and having towels wrapped around their heads. Is that supposed to make them look like feminists? It’s all so phony, because not once are Milo and Hank seen in the movie actually having a conversation with the women in their love lives about the women’s hopes, dreams and life goals, and how they can support each other in those goals.

And since this a romantic comedy with no original ideas, it uses the old cliché of ex-lovers coming into the picture so the new couple at the center of the story will be “tested” by jealousy issues. Milo’s ex-girlfriend is someone whom he calls Katie 7F (played by Sohina Sidhu), because she grew up in Apartment 7F of Milo’s building. Katie has unresolved feelings for Milo.

Wendy’s ex-boyfriend is a weirdo named Bradley (played by Arturo Castro), whom Milo and Wendy see at a plant shop. Bradley is there with his current girlfriend Erica (played by Hallie Samuels), who’s got a ditsy personality. The four of them have an awkward conversation.

And the boring scenarios drag on and on until the movie comes to the most derivative conclusion that anyone can expect. None of the actors in the cast does anything special. Reale has the best comedic timing out of all the cast members, while Young-White is sometimes stiff in his delivery. It doesn’t help that Milo is an obnoxious character who thinks he’s got a better personality than he really has. The supporting characters in the movie are very two-dimensional and trite.

“Dating & New York” has so little originality and is filled with so much annoying dialogue, you can fall alseep or fast forward through the middle of the movie, start watching the last 20 minutes, and still know how everything is going to end. If you can’t get enough of these types of predictable romantic comedies with a concept of “friends with benefits who try to pretend they won’t fall in love with each other,” then you’re better off watching a classic such as “When Harry Met Sally.”

IFC Films released “Dating & New York” in select U.S. cinemas, digital and VOD on September 10, 2021.