| The last time I remember being this taken with a VW bus was when Spicoli tumbled out of one after the first bell rang in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." |
| If a VW bus can be a "beacon of hope," then maybe there's reason for optimism as we begin this week of gratitude in a year that has challenged us in more ways than one. |
| I'm Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter, still laughing at the scene in "Sentimental Value" where the auteur director gives his grandson DVDs of "The Piano Teacher" and "Irreversible" for his 10th birthday. Keep physical media alive, grandpa! |
Cover story: Renate Reinsve |
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| (Bexx Francois / For The Times) |
| A critic friend of mine called after seeing Chloé Zhao's achingly beautiful "Hamnet," a movie I've written often about since watching it at the Telluride Film Festival and a movie that you'll be able to see and embrace this week as it opens in theaters. |
| "I did not cry," she told me. "Too on the nose. You know what movie made me cry? 'Sentimental Value.'" |
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| Knowing her, this made perfect sense. "Sentimental Value" is a movie for people who don't like to cry, who may not admit that they have ever cried, who listen to Loudon Wainwright's song "The Man Who Couldn't Cry" and say, "Yes, that's me!" |
| "Sentimental Value" won the Grand Prix at Cannes in May and has been slowly rolling out in theaters around the Southland the past couple of weekends. It stars Renate Reinsve as Nora, a stage actress estranged from her father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), the same guy handing out a Michael Haneke movie to his young grandson. |
| So, maybe there's a reason for the distance. |
| Gustav wants to make amends and has written a choice role for Nora in what he hopes to be his comeback movie, a project that appears to be drawn from his mother's tragic story. Nora doesn't even want to read it. So Gustav winds up offering the part to an A-list American actress (played by Elle Fanning) whose casting would guarantee financing. Sure enough, Netflix snaps it up. |
| "Sentimental Value" is directed by Danish-Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier, who co-wrote the film with Eskil Vogt. It's a trenchant commentary on the state of cinema in these perilous times, as well as a probing look at a family reckoning with the past and wondering if reconciliation is possible — or even desired. |
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| It also marks a reunion between Trier and Reinsve, who teamed for the glorious 2021 romantic drama "The Worst Person in the World," a film that earned Oscar nominations for international film and original screenplay (also by Trier and Vogt). Somehow Reinsve was overlooked for lead actress. That won't happen again with "Sentimental Value." She's too good. |
| I saw "Sentimental Value" with my colleague Matt Brennan, who, right after the movie, told me he needed to interview Reinsve. His profile begins with the question he was musing on in the theater's parking garage. |
| What is it about Renate Reinsve? |
| "But you cannot simply ask the subject of your cover story what has made her the current cinema's rawest nerve," Matt writes. "So, inspired by her latest project — in which she plays Nora, a mercurial actor whose father returns from years of estrangement hoping to cast her in his autobiographical new film and shoot it in the family home — I ask Reinsve to join me on a historic house tour instead." |
| It's an inspired idea as that Oslo family home, a structure straight out of a fairy tale, is a central character in "Sentimental Value." It has been in the family for generations, the place where Nora and her younger sister, Agnes (the superb Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), grew up, the place where they lived when Gustav abandoned them. Now Gustav wants to shoot his new movie in that house, likely, though he doesn't state this, because he wants to tap into all of the sadness permeating in its walls. |
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| Matt and Times senior video editor Mark Potts also have a delightful chat with Reinsve where she cites, yes, "The Piano Teacher" as an early influence and obsession. |
| So maybe Gustav was onto something. |
