Sentimental Value

After the troubled marriage between Stellan Skarsgård as Gustav Borg and Ida Marianne Vassbotn Klasson as Sissel ends, Gustav uses the divorce as a reason to leave Norway and devote himself to his career, while Sissel raises their daughters Nora and Agnes in the family home in Oslo that has been in Gustav’s family for generations. In adulthood, Agnes works as a historian and is married with a son, and Nora becomes a fairly successful actress, even as stage fright gnaws at her performances. Nora navigates a complicated personal life, including an affair with her married colleague Anders Danielsen Lie and the weight of expectations from a family that keeps its past close.

When Sissel dies, Gustav returns to Norway to reclaim the house, and his daughters grow to resent him for the years of absence and his troubled relationship with alcohol. Agnes remains the relatively steady thread, more willing to engage with him, while Nora and Agnes struggle to repair a bond fractured by years of silence and unspoken hurt. Gustav’s attempts at reconciliation are repeatedly jolted by his blunt microaggressions and a persistent lack of emotional intuition, even as he finds a sort of kinship with Agnes’ young son.

Gustav’s career is on the wane, and he faces difficulty securing financing for new projects. His latest script draws on his mother Karin, a member of the Norwegian resistance who was tortured during the Nazi occupation and who killed herself in the family home when Gustav was seven. He proposes to shoot the film in the actual house and to recreate Karin’s suicide in the climactic scene, asking Nora to play the character inspired by her grandmother. Nora declines to read the script, wary of unveiling more family pain on screen. To replace Nora, Gustav hires an American actress, Rachel Kemp, whose star power convinces Netflix to fund the project. The collaboration quickly becomes strained: Rachel cannot speak Norwegian, and Gustav’s production needs to be translated for her. Nora grows uneasy as Gustav treats Rachel with more empathy than he ever showed his own daughters.

Jakob divorces his wife but refuses to commit to Nora, and Gustav’s suggestion that Nora’s internal rage blocks real love deeply wounds her. Nora loses interest in her own work as the project drags on. Agnes has a confrontation with Gustav after he casts her son in a film role without informing her, a moment that dredges up old memories of being cast to connect with him. Rachel realizes the role isn’t right for her, and she resigns from the project, leaving Gustav to pursue the film on his own terms. That night, Gustav drinks heavily, raises a middle finger at the house, and then collapses, sending the production into a pause for his hospitalization.

To understand her father better, Agnes visits the National Archives of Norway to read her grandmother’s wartime statement—the document she refused to discuss with anyone for years. Reading Gustav’s script alongside Karin’s history, she discovers that while the plot is inspired by Karin’s experiences, its emotional core mirrors Gustav’s own regrets about his fractured relationship with Nora. Agnes is moved, especially by the final scene, which echoes a past suicide attempt by Nora that the sisters had kept secret from their father. This revelation helps Nora see the story in a new light, and she ultimately agrees to join the film.

Gustav finds the funding to finish the movie without Rachel, and production resumes, now set in a modern context on a sound stage. Nora delivers the climactic scene, performing alongside Erik as her on-screen son. After a final take, she shares a quiet, knowing glance with her father, signaling a newfound understanding between them and a reconciliation that finally blends art with healing.

In the end, the film becomes less about a past trauma than a meditation on generational grief, forgiveness, and the power of art to bridge estranged relationships.

Last Updated: January 06, 2026 at 10:49