The Worst Person in the World – Verdens freshest menneske (2021)

Directed by: Joachim Trier | 121 minutes | drama, comedy | Actors: Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Maria Grazia Di Meo, Herbert Nordrum, Hans Olav Brenner, Mia McGovern Zaini, Deniz Kaya, Nataniel Nordnes, Rebekka Jynge, Lasse Gretland, Gisle Tveito, Helene Bjørneby

What makes cinema impressive? In any case, there must be a synergy between the film and the viewer, which identifies the feeling and the spirit with the shadow play before your eyes. But apart from that? Is it the actors, the story, the images, the editing or the sound? There are so many elements that can make or break a movie, too much of something or too little, it’s all the more amazing that everything comes together in a powerful way. That you are transported like a light feather to another world, as recognizable as new and fresh, even though melancholy themes are reviewed. One such movie is ‘The Worst Person in the World’. The title was chosen with a sense of irony, because then it would have to flop, especially if the film pretends to be romantic in nature. Yet sings, dances, laments, cries and this predominantly Norwegian production exemplifies the fickleness of finding your place in the world. The film charts Julie in twelve chapters from her early twenties to mid-thirties, in which various callings, partners, heartaches, family affairs and festive trips pass by. Occasionally time stands still and Julie floats away on a cloud of inner happiness.

Director Joachim Trier seems to have finished his Olso trilogy spectacularly with ‘The Worst Person in the World’. The first part ‘Reprise’ (2006) and the central panel ‘Oslo, August 31st’ (2011) of the triptych were about ambitious and troubled adolescents Philip, Erik and Anders, but in Trier’s last print the men disappear appropriately between the wings. and make way for the spirited Julie. Just like her male comrades in arms, she has boundless ambition, strives for ultimate happiness, conquers and breaks other people’s hearts. However, the healing of this does not yet succeed, not that of someone else, but also not of herself. The film depicts what for millenials precedes ‘Scenes from a marriage’ (Ingmar Bergman, 1973). Trier’s film is brimming with energy as if a young Woody Allen had subordinated his razor-sharp dialogues and situations to the people who witness them, and not the other way around as so often. Or if only the Swedish film mastodon Ingmar Bergman had tasted a little more of Allen’s anarchic humor and displayed less of the existential gloom of the Norwegians Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Munch. Other times perhaps.

In addition, Trier has borrowed wonderfully the art of cinema outside Scandinavia, particularly the playful and intellectual Nouvelle Vague films and the fluid, vibrant American independent cinema of the 1980s and 1990s. Trier’s film especially shares a certain degree of effortlessness with his examples. Nevertheless, ‘The Worst Person in The World’ also has a strong identity of its own, the love for cinema is not just copying or making a fetish of examples. The never-drying source of other cinema highlights mainly serves as inspiration.

Beautiful and long-lasting collaborations form the basis of ‘The Worst Person in The World. Trier and Eskil Vogt have been working together on screenplays since their student films. Vogt also directs films himself, but more in the supernatural genre, such as ‘Thelma’ (2017, Trier). In addition, the revelation of the film is Renate Reinsve, who really plays the tiles of the roof as Julie. This achievement doesn’t just come out of the blue as Reinsve has starred in almost all of Trier’s films and this time director and actress found each other in rhyming fashion in the lead character Julie. Together with Alana Haim in ‘Licorice Pizza’ (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2021), another atypical title for a romantic film, Renate Reinsve forms the leading group of Oscar-worthy performances this year. Both women are not only good at their craft, they also possess tons of charisma. Then there is Anders Danielsen Lie again, who portrays the tragic, embittered Aksel, a lover of Julie. Danielsen Lie previously played the lead roles in ‘Reprise’ and ‘Oslo, August 31’ in an unforgettable way and now more or less hands over the reinsve, like Daniel Day Lewis to Vicky Krieps in ‘Phantom Thread’ (2017).

Mostly set in and around Oslo, Trier’s trilogy proves to be a testament to ‘film what you know’, then lets you be swept away by the power of imagination. Like François Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel saga, it produces bittersweet cinematic pearls. Ultimately, Julie is the center of gravity of the film, around it float the romantic relationships – which partly shape her. Her fickleness breaks not only the hearts of loved ones, but her own as well. However, don’t worry! Although Julie’s story is full of sorrow, there is just as much lightness, humor and will to live. ‘The Worst Person in the World’ is a film-lyrical ode to the past loves that you quietly carry with you.