- Sensibility: Tragically sensible. A great exploration of a brutally realistic character.
- Cinematography: The locations and production design are major highlights of the film. The city, Oslo, provides the perfect visual landscape to evaluate the main character. Lighting and editing choices are excellent and add tremendous flavor to a bunch of the scenes.
- Energy: The strength of the writing and the characters keeps things moving. Great dialogue and performances make the emotional content of the film sing. Only weakness lies in the predictability of the story leading it to drag a bit in reaching the expected ending.
- Narrative: Brilliant character writing is the foundation of this film. The main character and all of his family and friends have idiosyncracies that make the film feel more real and meaningful. The story is so strong that it feels universally relatable even if not by direct experience. The only weakness is that this is not a new story by any means and feels derivative at moments of many other films about addiction and suicide.
- T-Points: The film received four bonus points: one for an opening scene at a lake, one for a brutal interview, one for a great scene eavesdropping in a coffee shop, and one for the long, oner-style ending sequence.
Unforgettable film that I love so much from Joachim Trier. Anders Danielsen Lie puts on a performance that really takes this film over the top and transcends the language barrier brilliantly. It's awesome to see how the imagery, production design, and even the cast, of this film go on to play a huge role in Sentimental Value (2025).
Number of Watches: 2
