The Cast and Crew of ‘Sentimental Value’ Discuss Making One of 2025’s Best Films
FilmSpeak sits down with actors Stellan Skarsgård, Elle Fanning, Renate Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, and director Joachim Trier to discuss the making of ‘Sentimental Value.’
Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value is one of 2025’s most special movies, a deeply affecting work of art that will make you feel a bevy of strong emotions by the time it reaches its sobering final scene. It’s a film that feels like it’s only released once in a blue moon, but did it feel as special to make as it did for an audience member to watch and feel the emotions of the actors in ways they never knew existed beforehand?
For actress Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, “you try not to think so much about the result, when we're doing it. You try to forget that. At least, I had to try to forget that I was working with really famous actors. You can’t have that hanging over you.”
Actress Elle Fanning, who portrays Rachel Kemp, on the other hand, said that “you can’t predict anything on how people are going to receive something, but I certainly felt like it was special on set. Joachim Trier is one of our greatest directors. It was one of the best experiences I've ever had. It was so unique and rewarding to work with him. You can’t predict, but I certainly had an incredible experience. It was very joyous, and, I don't know, cathartic, for me, in a way, as well.”
The movie develops a strong relationship between sister Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), which unfolds in ways that are utterly devastating as the film progresses. When developing this aspect of their familial bond, Reinsve tells FilmSpeak that all of it is “in the script. It holds itself. It's very contained, and you get all these little hints that something has happened in the family. You see the house over time and how the story has affected everyone differently within it. For me, the movie really opens up in that sister scene, where the whole movie pivots, and you see why they've made the choices they've made. They see their own shortcomings through the other person and, for the first time, realize something about themselves and the relationship they haven't seen before. And that’s where reconciliation with their father begins.”
There’s a lot of great detail in the unspoken words and how the characters look at one another through their facial expressions, which can often convey more complexity than a line of dialogue can. The visual language will illustrate these shifts in micro-expressions on its own. According to actor Stellan Skarsgård, who portrays Gustav Borg, none of this was in the screenplay:
“That was not in the screenplay at all. It’s all in the moment on the set. [Joachim] creates an atmosphere that makes it possible to produce those things, which he can choose and pick the right ones in the movie.”
For Trier himself, it was important for him to find a balance between “observational, bigger movements, spatial shots, and the real intimate stuff, aggressively intimate too. I really want to see great close-ups, and I always cast actors who dare to be subtle and trust the camera to really see a face in a scope you cannot see in reality, which I find cinematic. You don't have the right to stare at someone that intimately in real life, because you would be a psychopath.
However, in cinema, we're allowed to feel people in a very direct way, and that's kind of what I wanted to do once in a while. Occasionally in the film, I go into that intimate space, and I think the actors carry it very well. I'm super happy about what they’ve done. This takes guts because they are tapping into very complicated emotions to try to create a sense of life, and you have to admire that.”
Reflecting on their experience working on the film, Fanning explained that it challenged her in ways she never expected and took her “to a new place where I learned a lot of things about myself as an actor and working with Joachim to calibrate these moments. Yes, it's spontaneous, but there were many subtle technicalities with Rachel that could have easily slipped either way. She gets a little more insecure, her confidence builds, then she becomes more insecure as the film goes on. Ultimately, she does a courageous thing by walking away from something she wants. Every character is so fully fleshed out in their emotions, and nothing's tied up into a perfect bow. Those are the movies that I like.”