THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
****
Director: Joachim Trier
Screenwriters: Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt
Principal cast:
Renate Reinsve
Anders Danielsen Lie
Herbert Nodrum
Maria Grazia Di Meo
Hans Olav Brenner
Vidar Sandem
Country: Norway/France/Sweden/Denmark
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 127 mins.
Australian release date: 26 December 2021.
Norwegian actress Renate Reinsve took out the Best Actress award at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival for her effervescent performance in The Worst Person in the World as a thirtyish woman unable to make up her mind about… well, pretty much everything – career, boyfriend, marriage, children; in short, what to do with her life. This is the third film in Joachim Trier’s Oslo Trilogy, the first two being Reprise (2006) and Oslo, August 31 (2011) and, like them, it is a dark, though not unamusing, portrait of a young adult trying to come to terms with the complexities of life in the 21st century. The earlier movies in the trilogy concentrated on two males but in this one Trier and his usual writing collaborator, Eskil Vogt, have changed tack and examined the life of a young woman. Speaking at Cannes he said, “There's something very liberating about writing characters that are not necessarily yourself. You're allowed to draw from people you know and love - imagination - and you can also put a lot of yourself in there to try to empathise with the characters. The question of writing a female character... I felt it was kind of liberating.”
Reinsve is Julie and she is on-screen almost the entire time. The camera loves her impish face and follows her closely as she criss-crosses Oslo and the events in her somewhat dramatic and free-wheeling existence. When we first meet her, she is a medical student having doubts about her career choice, so she decides to specialise in psychology before dropping out to become a photographer and then resolving to become a writer. Her boyfriend doesn’t fit her plans so she leaves him and soon meets Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), a graphic artist who’s published a successful series of underground comics about a politically incorrect cat named Bobcat. Julie is happy until Aksel, who’s older than she is, starts talking about raising a family. Leaving early from a book launch one evening, she gate-crashes a wedding and spends the night talking to, and flirting with, Eivind (Herbert Nodrum), before they go their separate ways. A spark has been ignited in her brain (and presumably other parts of her anatomy), however, so when Eivind, who’s a similar age to her, visits the bookshop where she works, she decides it’s time to upend her life once more. But will a new man change her approach to life or is she doomed to keep repeating the same mistake?
At the start of The Worst Person in the World we are informed that Julie’s story will unfold in “12 chapters, a prologue and an epilogue”, and so it does, with chapter titles like Oral Sex in the Age of #MeToo, Julie’s Narcissistic Circus and Bobcat Wrecks Xmas giving some indication of things to come. There’s a lot going on in this mature, thoughtful screenplay that people of Julie’s age will relate to and older viewers may well regard wistfully. Reinsve is matched by sensitive performances from Danielsen Lie and Nodrum and they in turn are supported by a fairly large cast representing parents and siblings, friends and exes. There’s beautiful footage of Oslo at all hours of the day and night, too, enough to make you want to visit this picturesque Scandinavian city - in summer, at least - and Ola Fløttum’s lovely score adds poignancy to the visuals. Trier’s charming film will delight and surprise you.
Screenwriters: Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt
Principal cast:
Renate Reinsve
Anders Danielsen Lie
Herbert Nodrum
Maria Grazia Di Meo
Hans Olav Brenner
Vidar Sandem
Country: Norway/France/Sweden/Denmark
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 127 mins.
Australian release date: 26 December 2021.
Norwegian actress Renate Reinsve took out the Best Actress award at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival for her effervescent performance in The Worst Person in the World as a thirtyish woman unable to make up her mind about… well, pretty much everything – career, boyfriend, marriage, children; in short, what to do with her life. This is the third film in Joachim Trier’s Oslo Trilogy, the first two being Reprise (2006) and Oslo, August 31 (2011) and, like them, it is a dark, though not unamusing, portrait of a young adult trying to come to terms with the complexities of life in the 21st century. The earlier movies in the trilogy concentrated on two males but in this one Trier and his usual writing collaborator, Eskil Vogt, have changed tack and examined the life of a young woman. Speaking at Cannes he said, “There's something very liberating about writing characters that are not necessarily yourself. You're allowed to draw from people you know and love - imagination - and you can also put a lot of yourself in there to try to empathise with the characters. The question of writing a female character... I felt it was kind of liberating.”
Reinsve is Julie and she is on-screen almost the entire time. The camera loves her impish face and follows her closely as she criss-crosses Oslo and the events in her somewhat dramatic and free-wheeling existence. When we first meet her, she is a medical student having doubts about her career choice, so she decides to specialise in psychology before dropping out to become a photographer and then resolving to become a writer. Her boyfriend doesn’t fit her plans so she leaves him and soon meets Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), a graphic artist who’s published a successful series of underground comics about a politically incorrect cat named Bobcat. Julie is happy until Aksel, who’s older than she is, starts talking about raising a family. Leaving early from a book launch one evening, she gate-crashes a wedding and spends the night talking to, and flirting with, Eivind (Herbert Nodrum), before they go their separate ways. A spark has been ignited in her brain (and presumably other parts of her anatomy), however, so when Eivind, who’s a similar age to her, visits the bookshop where she works, she decides it’s time to upend her life once more. But will a new man change her approach to life or is she doomed to keep repeating the same mistake?
At the start of The Worst Person in the World we are informed that Julie’s story will unfold in “12 chapters, a prologue and an epilogue”, and so it does, with chapter titles like Oral Sex in the Age of #MeToo, Julie’s Narcissistic Circus and Bobcat Wrecks Xmas giving some indication of things to come. There’s a lot going on in this mature, thoughtful screenplay that people of Julie’s age will relate to and older viewers may well regard wistfully. Reinsve is matched by sensitive performances from Danielsen Lie and Nodrum and they in turn are supported by a fairly large cast representing parents and siblings, friends and exes. There’s beautiful footage of Oslo at all hours of the day and night, too, enough to make you want to visit this picturesque Scandinavian city - in summer, at least - and Ola Fløttum’s lovely score adds poignancy to the visuals. Trier’s charming film will delight and surprise you.