THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
Co-Production Focus (Norway/ France/ Denmark/ Sweden)
Director: Joachim Trier
Cast: Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Herbert Nordrum
Countries: Norway/ France/ Denmark/ Sweden
Genre: Tragicomedy, Drama, Love
128 minutes – Norwegian with English subtitles – 2021
This modern dramedy about the quest for love and meaning in contemporary Oslo chronicles four years in the life of Julie (Renate Reinsve), a young woman navigating the troubled waters of her love life and struggling to find her career path. It is a warts-and-all journey of self-discovery, as she endeavours, with authentic human imperfections, to take a realistic look at who she really is.
Fluidly told in twelve chapters, this contemporary psychological drama is the third film in a trilogy by Joachim Trier, who describes it as “a coming-of-age film for grownups who feel like they still haven’t grown up.” The mesmerising Renate Reinsve won the Best Actress prize at Cannes for her emotionally intricate and exhilarating character study of Julie. The film received two Oscar nominations for Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards in 2022.
For a long time I have wanted to make a film about love, especially about how irresolute and uncertain even the most rational and otherwise self-confident people can become when they fall in love; and how complicated it is, even for romantics, when they actually get what they have been dreaming about.
Joachim Trier, director, The Worst Person in the World
An achingly human and frighteningly accurate portrait of an entire generation’s existential crisis, The Worst Person in the World observes millennial angst through a young woman’s quest for love and meaning as she enters into her 30s without any idea about her identity and purpose in life.
CinemaClown
Hilarious, romantic, and poignant, The Worst Person in the World tells something true about a woman’s experience.
Ayelet Dekel, Midnight East
A deeply moving experience. It resonates with me in a way that very few films do. I feel it. It isn’t just entertainment, it’s something more. Exactly what that is, I can’t quite say.
Pjtaylor
When the wind blows, and on many other occasions, this is the best film in the world.
Charlotte O’Sullivan, London Evening Standard
Blending melancholy wistfulness with unruly energy and piercing humour, it’s a down-to-earth tale of love and death, boosted by a brilliantly believable central performance and elevated by fantastical moments of hallucinogenic horror and ecstatic joy.
Mark Kermode, Observer (UK)
