Year of Release: 2021
Director: Joachim Trier
Starring: Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Herbert Nordrum, Hans Olav Brenner, Helene Bjorneby, Maria Grazia Di Meo, Vidar Sandem, Lasse Gretland, Marianne Krogh, Thea Stabell, Karen Roise Kielland
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 8
Watch it on Tubi
Synopsis and Review
Following the well received "Louder than Bombs" and "Thelma", writer/director Joachim Trier premiered "The Worst Person in the World" at the Cannes Film Festival of 2021, to critical acclaim, winning in the process the award for best actress for Renate Reinsve. The film introduces us to Julie, a twenty-something medical student, whom we witness having a change of heart, and deciding to pursue psychology instead, before settling on photography. Julie starts a relationship with Aksel Willman, an illustrator and comic artist, who is considerably older than her. He has some reservations starting the relationship with her precisely because of their age difference, but is finally won over by Julie's beauty and somewhat carefree spirit. While Julie meshes with Aksel's friends, there's an obvious age difference with the group, which is also obvious in the fact that his friends have families and children. This motivates Aksel to discuss starting a family with Julie, which eventually results in them having a fight. Aksel has a publishing party, and Julie decides to leave earlier. On her way home she crashes a wedding reception taking place and meets Eivind, a barista. They have instant chemistry, and end up spending a night together, sharing stories and intimacies, but refraining from having sex since they're both involved with other people. In the morning they part ways only sharing their first names. Julie writes a short story about feminism that gains some attention and shortly after celebrates her 30th birthday. Her father doesn't show up, making up an excuse for it, which upon Julie and Aksel's visit to his place turns out to be uncovered when her half sister explains what he was doing. Julie who in the meantime has been working in a bookstore, encounters Eivind and his girlfriend browsing around. She eventually decides to break up with Aksel, and shortly after so does Eivind with his girlfriend.
One of the most interesting aspects of "The Worst Person in the World" is the ability the co-writer/director has of making these characters all feel palpably real. This trifecta of central characters, and in particular Julie, all come across as people trying to find the best path for their lives, uncovering what suits them best, sometimes stumbling into poor decisions, and at times coming to terms with realizations that are right in front of them but that they simply have failed to acknowledge (namely Julie's relationship with an absent father, who simply invests all his time and attention on his new family). It's a film that is observational in the best of senses: it does not judge its characters, it simply allows for the complexity of who they are come to the surface, showcasing what their decision making actually is, and where they eventually find themselves as a result of it. It's easy to state that this microcosms is representative of the millennial generation's anguish towards their lives and how they can't stomach the consequences of their actions, but that is reducing the impact of this narrative. This feature illustrates how the journey of growing up isn't a perfectly balanced one, where all the decisions that one makes are not motivated by the noblest of sentiments: it illustrates that life is a collection of colorful moments, some that are more inspired, and others that are representative of people at their worst. Julie for all her good intentions, and her focus on self discovery, hurts others in that process, even if that is not her intent. Is she a bit self-centered and slightly egocentric? Maybe so, but that's what the film eventually asks us to think about: aren't we all in a way just like Julie, living a life that we think is like a movie, where we're driven by lust, frustration, and pursuit of a fleeting moments of happiness. It's a film that is peppered with such great details, character wise but also visually speaking. The cast is uniformly great, particularly Renate Reinsve, who deservedly got a string of awards for her performance as Julie, with great support from Anders Danielsen Lie and Herbert Nordrum. The production team is equally solid, particularly Kasper Tuxen's cinematography and Ola Flottum's score. It's a finely crafted film worth watching and savoring.
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