Sentimental Value (2025) - Movie Review

 Sentimental Value (2025)  - Stellan Skarsgard (Good Will Hunting Math Professor) returns to his Swedish ancestral home for the funeral of his ex-wife, reuniting with his estranged adult daughters played by actresses I have not previously seen.  Skarsgard we learn is a film director of some note, but hasn't made a movie in like 15 years.  One of his daughters is a rising stage and television actress who holds a grudge against him for abandoning the family.  Skarsgard has written a script for a comeback film and asks the daughter to star in the film.  She rejects the offer accusing him of using her new ascending notoriety to get financing,  Skarsgard retreats and is next seen in a theater celebrating the retrospection of his film career.  He is forlorn by the ending of his active career but still touched by a scene he shot two decades prior that stars his other daughter as a ten year old.  When the lights come up we see a teary Elle Fanning, who the audience learns is a big Hollywood movie star.  Fanning invites him to join her group for dinner and they click.  One thing leads to another and Fanning is going to star in his dormant project.  That's the plot point that ends Act 1 and I found the entire film brilliant, maybe for personal reasons as I have two daughters.  Skarsgard is an artist and his artistry is central to who he is and therefore central to the conflicts with his ex-wife and why he became estranged to the family.  Late in the film the more accepting daughter is upset that he pitched a role in the film to her ten year old son.  She doesn't want her son invested in that world.  She says making the film with him was the best moment of her life and then he disappeared.  She cannot have him do that to her son.  Meanwhile, Elle Fanning realizes that she is wrong for the part, and seeks out the stage actress daughter to understand why she turned it down.  Taken together the audience starts to see that art is how he shows his love to his family.  He wrote the script not as a comeback, but as a way to connect with the estranged daughter.  I think I'm most impressed with the effort because I don't think that an artist's personal flaws have ever been explained in such personal and familial context as related to the art.  Thankfully it was nominated for Best Picture or I doubt I ever would have bothered with it.  I had not seen a film by Joachim Trier previously but I am going seek out his other works.