Film Kicks presents The Christophers

Sentimental Value

Despite its title, the great strength of this eloquent family dramais its heartfelt but unsentimental tone as it explores the complex dynamics between a father who is a brilliant film director and the two grown daughters he tries, quite belatedly, to form an emotional bond with. Stellan Skarsgård gives what may be the best performance of his long and varied career as the father, Gustav Borg, depicting him as an unapologetically self-absorbed artist who nonetheless has genuine love and concern for his daughters. The writer and director Joachim Trier elicits equally realistic, nuanced performances from Renate Reinsve as his anxious, distrustful daughter, an actress, and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas as the younger daughter who is protective of her small son and sister. Elle Fanning, as an actress Borg casts in his film, smoothly helps carry the theme of how art intersects and complicates life. Sentimental Value begins with a look at the Borg family house in Oslo, a perfect emblem of the way this enticing film makes viewers feel they have entered a home and witnessed these father-daughter and sibling relationships in all their wariness and longing for love.