Affeksjonsverdi

Winner of the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Festival, the sprawling intergenerational drama AFFEKSJONSVERDI sees writer-director Joachim Trier teaming up once more with Renate Reinsve, the breakout star of his celebrated existential rom-com VERDENS VERSTE MENNESKE (2021). Reinsve plays Nora, a gifted stage and television actress we first see having an uproarious backstage breakdown before her opening night performance of Chekhov’s The Seagull. When her estranged father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), reappears, he offers her a part in film he’s written about his mother, who was tortured by Nazis and died by suicide. Nora refuses, leading Gustav to cast a Hollywood actress (Elle Fanning) in her stead. By turning their Oslo family home into his own film set, Gustav upends not just Nora’s life but that of her more well-adjusted sister (Inga Lilleaas), a former child actor who starred in one of Gustav’s early films. Brimming with familial resentments and artistic anxieties yet distinguished by an awkward, understated sense of humour, AFFEKSJONSVERDI is an absorbing ensemble piece about exploitation, memory and legacy—and the power of artistic creation to both heal past wounds and defer hard truths. (Beatrice Loayza)

Joachim Trier: PIETÀ (2000, K), STILL (2001,K), PROCTER (2002, K), REPRISE (2006), OSLO, 31. AUGUST (2011), LOUDER THAN BOMBS (2015), THELMA (2017), THE OTHER MUNCH (2018), THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (2021)