Best to ‘Worst’
Norwegian director Joachim Trier completes his unofficial ‘Oslo Trilogy’ with a Palme d’Or win, two Oscar nods and a middle finger to rom-com tropes.
the worst person in the world
Director: Joachim Trier • Writers: Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier
Starring: Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Herbert Nordrum, Hans Olav Brenner, Helene Bjørneby, Vidar Sandem
Norway • 2hrs 8mins
Opens Hong Kong May 12 • III
Grade: A
Whether Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World is a rom-com in the strictest sense of the form is debatable. The film is funny. Not HAHAHAHAHAHA funny but it’s witty and bone dry; the comedy here is as black as my morning coffee. It’s romantic in that the leading lady has, of course, two suitors, and she’s likely to pick “the wrong guy” before she lucks out with the “right” one. But this being Trier – and really, read the title – and a Norwegian film that would rather blow up (Hollywood) rom-com tropes than roll around in them like a pig in a mud pile, the happy ending is entirely subjective. But it’s objectively perfect.
Trier is best known for his loose Oslo Trilogy, which started in 2006 with Reprise, about a petty, marginally talented, struggling writer, was followed by Oslo, August 31st in 2011, which tracked a junkie relapsing on one late summer day, and ends (I guess) here. Their setting in the Norwegian capital and the general messiness of the main characters’ lives are the only things that truly link the three films. Because yeah, the main character here, Julie? She messy AF.
Taking shelf space is a classic passive-aggressive power move
As played effortlessly by Renate Reinsve, Julie may be the worst person in the world as suggested by the title, but she’s also one of the most realistic and resonant of the past decade, and that’s being generous. The film starts with a prologue, in which university student Julie jumps from studying medicine, to psychology, to photography, each time convinced she’s finally found her calling. She also jumps from guy to guy before settling on “true love” with satirical cartoonist Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie, who starred in the other two Oslo films), despite the fact he’s in his early 40s and she’s barely 25. The next 12 chapters in Julie’s life – “The Others,” about vacationing with Aksel’s family and their various children, “Cheating,” where she meets Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), and which is exactly what it sounds like but involves public urination, and “First Person Singular,” wherein Julie confronts death. At various points she tries her hand at writing, drugs, she wants kids, she doesn’t want kids, and at every turn antagonises those closest to her while trying to sort herself out. Julie is exhausting.
And infuriating. And entirely relatable. It’s rare that a pair of dudes are so astute when it comes to women’s… well to women; compare Julie to any number of so-called manic pixie dream girls (Ruby Sparks, Garden State), women in Alexander Payne films, or Jennifer Lawrence characters by David O Russell. Shudder. But Trier and his regular co-writer Eskil Vogt (who earned an Oscar nomination for their impeccable screenplay) have grounded Julie in a reality familiar to almost any woman, anywhere, who’s ever been 20-something and unsure of what the hell she was doing.
She looks all polished and together…
There’s not a lot more to The Worst Person in the World. It’s got its rom-com-isms, but it’s also a portrait of late-20s uncertainty, searching, learning and acceptance of self. Put that way it’s as much coming-of-age story as rom-com, and proves that coming of age isn’t restricted to ’tweens and teens. Chapters don’t often work as successfully as they do here, where each of the 12 chapters in Julie’s life are perfect, complete capsules of an inflection point, and are loaded with sharp, little details and emotional truths. Reinsve deservedly won an award at Cannes for her performance, that I’m going to go out on a limb and say will divide along gender lines. Guys are going to see Julie as a child, selfish, and a “bitch.” Women will see her as determining her own future. It’s a credit to Reinsve that she manages to make Julie both. There’s way worse than her out there. DEK
Oddly enough, this is not what freedom looks like