Pop Culture Happy Hour - Sentimental Value

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

The new movie Sentimental Value is one of the great films about absentee dads who reappear in their kids’ lives. Stellan Skarsgård plays a renowned filmmaker preparing his next feature and attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughters (played by Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). And it proves that at the very least, the tension between art and parenthood is complicated. The film is directed by Joachim Trier (The Worst Person in the World) and also stars Elle Fanning. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopcultureSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

There are a lot of movies about absentee dads who reappear in their kids' lives. The new movie, Sentimental Value, is one of the great ones. It stars Stellan Scarsgaard as a filmmaker attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughters. And it proves that at the very least, the tension between art and parenthood is complicated. I'm Ayesha Harris. Today we're talking about sentimental value, Pop Winter Happy Hour from NPR. Joining me today is my co-host Stephen Thompson. Hello, Stephen. Hello, Aisha. Also with us is Vulture TV critic, Roxana Hadadi. Welcome back, Roxana. Hey, thank you so much for having me.

Lovely to have you here. Sentimental value stars Stellan Scarsguard as Gustav Borg, a renowned filmmaker, preparing his next feature, a personal passion project. You ever's a lead role to his estranged daughter Nora, an actress played by Renata Reinsvitt, but she turns him down. Still, his re-entrance into Nora's life opens the door for possible reconciliation with her, as well as his other daughter, Agnes, played by Inga, Ebes daughter Lilios. El Fanning also stars as Rachel, an American actress whom Gustav cast in the part Nora, rejected. It's directed by Joachim Trier, who previously worked with Reinsvitt on The Worst Person in the World. Sentimental value is in theaters now. Stephen, I'm going to start with you.

You are a resident sentimental critic here. Resident sentimentalist. Yes, yes. And so I am so curious. How are we feeling about this film? Well, you know, I think Aisha, you recommended, as soon as you saw this movie, you were like, Stephen, you need to see this, you're going to sob all over the place. And, you know, that is a safe assumption in general, really when recommending any movie. I really liked this film.

I really admired this film. I love the performances in this film. I think this is basically across the board, a wonderfully acted film. I didn't necessarily sob all over the place. I mostly sat there kind of vibing with it and appreciating it. This film has a lot to say about kind of generational trauma. There are a lot of kind of cross-generational interactions that are kind of freighted. There's this central metaphor about this house, you know, where this family kind of grew up and how it is figuratively and literally a broken home.

It has a crack running up the foundation up the wall. And you're like, that is a tidy metaphor. So I wasn't necessarily always 100% knocked out by it. But I think these performances are just marvelous. I loved Renata Reinsva in the worst person in the world. I thought she was magnificent in that. I'm always interested in whatever she does. The fact that she's, you know, working with the same director, I'm like, man, these two can just keep making movies together.

But for me, the revelation was Inga Ibsdotr Lelis as Agnes. It's such a low-key performance. And it feels, you know, she's surrounded by these kind of decorated actors. You know, she is a decorated actor just not super well known here. Yeah. To me, she just jumped off the screen, and that is such a contained and powerful performance. Yeah. There's a very lovely moment towards the end of the film that happens between her character and Nora.

And that sort of sister dynamic plays out so interestingly because she herself has not pursued the acting career, even though, you know, they both grew up with their father being, it was famous. And so like that's such an interesting way to see these two different people who have shared trauma and shared a shared relationship. And you're so right. That's such a great performance. Roxanna, how are we feeling about sentimental value? I am very pro. I mean, look, like you know all my preferences, right? My preferences are like, Stellan being Stellan. Like I love when he sort of plays this like very defensive in his bad decisions kind of feeling. figure. Like, I think that's great. I'm coded to love that now forever because of Andor. So I really loved him here as someone who has committed himself fully to art. And he's like, yeah, my family

was second. Like, it had to be second because I had to make art. And so I think that the movie does a really good job getting into that ideology and just sort of spending time with what it is to be a filmmaker? What kind of conversations do you have with actors? How do you cast people? How do you make them into the characters they're trying to perform? I really loved that aspect of it. The family stuff is like very weighted.

And yes, it has this like house metaphor that keeps coming up. But I really enjoyed the sort of like, how do you make a movie, especially when the movie is like plumbing your inner life, right? like what is off limits, what is not off limits? And there are all these moments where Estelle's character says like, well, this isn't about me. And you sort of have to laugh because like, yeah, right, buddy. The entire movie is your life story and you're drawing your daughters into it, right? So it did not make me super emotional so much as it felt very, very satisfying to spend time with this script and with these characters.

And so I just, I hate to say like the vibes, but the vibe of it in terms of like diving into actual creative pursuit, I think is what I really, really liked and responded to. Yeah. I also think this movie is a little bit of a slow burn where it takes a little bit of time for some of the relationships in the movie to fully sink in. And as I was watching it in the theater, I'd had the thought several times of like, why is El Fanning in this movie? Yeah. Yeah. Like El Fanning is brought into this movie. She's like the famous, glitzy movie actress who was brought in to be the stand-in for Renata Reinsfuss character who doesn't want to work with her father.

But, like, looking back on it and kind of thinking about the film in hindsight, like, she's there because he relates to actors better than he relates to his kids. 100%. So he wants his kids to be actors so that he can connect to them. Yes. And I think that's a really interesting facet of. this film that it's more than just about family. It's also about filmmakers. Yes. Yeah. For me, Elle Fanning was actually one of my favorite parts of this film, if not that entire dynamic. She's quietly becoming one of those actresses who, where I see her in something and I'm like, oh, I'm very

happier here. She's often not in the conversation with the women in her sort of cohort, you know, your Jennifer Lawrence is like, but she should be because I think especially here, while at first, as you said, Stephen, it's not clear why she's there. There is this whole subplot of her trying to be molded by Gustav. And it is very vertigo. It is very like, I want you to dye your hair. I want you to do these things. And she's going along because she's like, I have this opportunity to work with this

brilliant artist and this could be great. And there's a way that this could have been played. She's the American actress, the Hollywood actress who just kind of wants to like put this under her belt and maybe get an Oscar. Like there's a way this could have felt like a very queen. But it's very clear she wants to do good work. But what I loved about that dynamic is that while that's happening and he's dealing with his not being a good father, she is trying to figure out like, where do I fit in and maybe realizing maybe

this isn't right for me. There's just something about that and seeing that play out in a way that it's often really hard to get filmmaking and rehearsing right to like on film. Like it's hard to make it seem like feel like. feel like the natural process of that. And I think what Yilkeem-Trier is able to do here is really getting into the nitty-gritty about what it's like to work one-on-one with someone, especially when you want them to be something or like want to try and work like create a character

and they're not sure how to do it and you're not sure what you want either. And I loved that. We cover a lot of movies about the process of making art. And making art is a thing that is really hard to capture on film. And often you wind up short-handing it with like the lone genius sitting at a writing table scribbling out and throwing into the waistbasket. And like, mank. Yeah, mank. That's supposed to represent what the artistic process is all about.

But so often, I mean, the artistic process generally, I say this all the time, is not the work of a lone genius. It's the product of collaboration. And how do you capture the kind of thorny, conversational, frustrated, kind of tightly wound process, you know, that results in great art. And this film, I think, really does get at it while also capturing how hard that can be to translate into the collaboration necessary to have a happy and healthy family. I also think the thing that I really liked, and it's very much part of that, is that there's sort of this question of, like, who owns your personal experience, especially when your personal experience, like, overlaps with other

people. And like we get into this like a lot with just like autobiographical art in general. Like, is it your place to speak to things that you experienced when they involve other people and those other people don't want you to speak to them? And so there's this whole undercurrent there as well. And there's this like wonderful scene where the characters of Nora and Rachel meet. Why didn't you want to do the role? I can't work with him. Why? We can't really talk. But he wanted you to do it. Yeah. Yeah.

And they have this like sort of existential discussion, right? About like what is that relationship like? And I just think all of that was really fascinating. The other thing that I will say that I really enjoyed is there is sort of this like, in Gustav's character, this sort of like hierarchy of art that I actually really liked. Like he insults television, which of course a film director would be. do and he sort of, he sort of, like, discredits the fact that Nora has become, like, a very celebrated stage actor, right? Right.

Right. He doesn't want any part of the stage. Yeah, which is weird. Yeah. You would think there would be a little bit more reverence for the stage, but. I mean, stage purism is such a thing. That's, yeah, that's true. Yeah.

You know, we're talking a lot about sort of, like, the emotional resonance and, like, the trauma and, like, all that stuff is, like, 100% there. But I also liked these moments when the characters can just be. like sort of shady about different art forms. Yes, yes. It speaks to the quality of both the script and these performances, that these feel like fully, richly thought out and drawn characters. Yeah, absolutely.

I did want to kind of ask about like before we got on Mike, Roxanna, you and I were chatting about similarities between this and another film that will be out this fall season. Jay Kelly, B. Noah Bomback films. starring George Clooney. Very, very similar in plots. George Clooney is playing instead of a director. He's a big movie star, basically kind of a himself but not. Yeah. Yeah. And he's trying to reconnect with his daughters and figure out, you know, where did I go wrong? Why is I absent seat? So hear me out for a a second. Remember in the 90s, I guess 80s and 90s where there was a slew of movies where the dads who

were like workaholics were getting, you know, it's like you had to go through a whole rigamarole or it's like, oh, you're not there for your kids. And then like get the. into the movie, they realize, you know, oh, well, I need to be a better father. Work is everything. That's when you hurl your cell phone into the river. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Well, I mean, this feels like, you know, the elevated version of that.

Sure. Instead of, you know, like Tim Allen or whatever, it's Stelling Skarscar. Robin Williams, Jim Carrey. We're talking about Hook. Can we just say that we're talking about Hook? Like, that's fine. Sure. We're talking about Hook.

I'm just curious because, like, having seen both of these movies, just like, what is about this sort of exercise, especially when you're talking about fathers and not mothers. Is there anything you want to say about that? Well, I think we're generally just sort of living in like a heavily fathers of daughters time. Like that just seems to be like so much of the content that we get. I mean, the last of us is fathers of daughters. Like both of these movies are fathers of daughters. And I think part of that, of course, is that like we still live in a society that is very much movie directors are fathers of daughters.

That's true. You know, like we just get their crises because that's who's making art. I will say that I do think that, yes, these movies are sort of like interesting counterpoint to each other. I would say I think that for me, sentimental value felt more about filmmaking and memory. And I think Jay Kelly felt more about like the celebrity machine, less to me about. about the daughter dynamic. I think it felt more like, what is it like to be George Clooney?

And that's sort of fun to explore. But I think it just felt more about like star making than it felt about like art making. And I can't speak to Jay Kelly. I haven't seen it yet. But I do think one thing this film gets right in comparison to so many other films about dads and daughters is this movie cares very deeply

about the interior lives of the daughters. Yes. And does write by the interior lives of the daughters. And part of that is a testament to the performances, but part of that is the movie actually cares about them. And the dad is a little bit more of an ephemeral mercurial presence. Like, he's the one you don't necessarily know everything that makes that guy tick. I think the film is ultimately more interested in the daughters.

Yeah. To its credit. Absolutely. I think we spend almost as much time with them. If not more. Yeah, if not more. And I think for me, one of my biggest issues, well, my only issue with this film, sentimental value, really, is the ending.

I did feel as though there was some emotional, there are so emotional beats that somehow were skipped, even though this is a very emotional movie, and there's so much attention to detail. It's like the last few minutes, I did feel a little bit let down by how kind of tidy it all felt. Not perfect, but just tidy. It's exactly the right word. It doesn't undermine, it doesn't ruin the rest of the experience of the film for me, but it does kind of give me like, I kind of wish there was a different decision made there.

I sort of felt like the ending was inevitable. Like, I don't know how else you would end this movie, given sort of like the themes that it is talking about in terms of like artistic expression and like, is it most important to do art that challenges you or just art? that you're good at, and I think that those are like very different things in this film. I can see your point that I feel like maybe there's some like squishiness in terms of how we get there, but I always sort of thought we would get there. So I was okay with it by the end. Yeah. I think there are ways they could have actually biffed the ending, and I appreciated that they didn't.

That's true. It does feel a little tidy in a film that is willing to go so much deeper in other ways. I think that's maybe why the tidiness stands out. Yochem Trir has talked about how he sees this as sort of like an exercising of his own anxieties about being a father. I don't want to psychoanalyze him here, but like I do wonder if that maybe is part of why he made that decision with the ending. It's like he's still working through things. Right. I also think that it also speaks to the fact that like this is why you cast Stellan, right?

Like Stellan has, I'm going to make this joke, which is not true, but Stellan has like a miller. children, they're all enacting. Right. Like, I think that there is also sort of... Family Scars Guard. Yeah. There's also this sort of interesting meta layer to having Stellan, who mostly has sons who are actors playing this character who has daughters who are involved in this industry, but in

different ways from what he expected. So I also thought the ending sort of spoke to that for me, and maybe that's why I were responded to it favorably, but it sort of felt like it, again, aligned with life and sort of like a peculiar sentimental way that I responded to. Well, I think we all really dug this and think people should absolutely see this film. Yes. It is a very moving movie. It didn't make us all cry, but I think it will at least make you sniffle, maybe.

I mean, I actually, I cried a little. Oh. You can feel things and not cry, you know? So, well, you say so. I cry a lot. A lot of tears. Well, tell us what you think about sentimental value when you've had a chance to check it out. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash PCH and on Letterbox at letterbox.com slash NPR

Pop Culture. We'll have a link to that in our episode description. That brings us to the end of our show, Roxanna Hadati. Stephen Thompson, thanks so much for being here. Thank you guys. Thank you. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Carly Rubin, and Mike Katziv, and editing by our showrunner Jessica Reedy.

Hello, Komen, provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all next time.