In writer-director Joachim Trier’s masterpiece The Worst Person in the World, Julie (Renate Reinsve) is roaring through her life like a locomotive in search of tracks. She’s a medical student until she isn’t, having decided that her passion is psychology instead. Then, she’s convinced her avocation is photography. Each career plunge is accompanied by a new hairstyle and a new boyfriend. She’s charming and talented – and completely restless and unreliable. Surely she can’t keep up this pace of self-invention forever, can she?
Julie falls in love with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie) a graphic novelist in his forties, and settles into a dead end retail job in a bookstore and a role as the young companion of a literary figure. Rocking a black cocktail dress for an event celebrating Aksel, she sneaks out and crashes another party. There, she meets the barista Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), and they flirt, after deciding not to cheat on their partners.
Is Julie going to dump Aksel and break up Eivind’s relationship? Real life is more complicated than that, and so is The Worst Person in the World, which maintains a profound authenticity through its moments of silliness, sexiness and poignancy.
I’ve been a huge fan of Trier, since his first feature Reprise, which I named the 4th best movie of 2005. I didn’t care for his well-crafted follow-up Oslo, August 31. But I’ve been strongly recommending his under appreciated Louder Than Bombs. Reprise is available to stream on Amazon, and you can find the other two on many streaming platforms.
Famed director Howard Hawks said that a great movie has “three great scenes and no bad scenes.” There are no bad scenes in The Worst Person in the World, and Trier hits Hawk’s mark with the moments when:
- Julie, on her 30th birthday, reflects on what her mother, grandmother and other female ancestors were doing when they were 30.
- Julie and Eivind meet and share nonsexual intimacies – which is smolderingly sexy.
- Time stands still for the rest of Oslo when Julie has the impulse to find Eivind again.
The title of the film does not refer to Julie; it’s a self-deprecating joke by another character, who is a good person himself.
Renate Reinsve is relentlessly appealing as Julie; Reinsve won the best actress award at Cannes. Lie (who starred in Reprise and Oslo, August 31) and Nordrum are also superb.
Technically, The Worst Person in the World is a romantic comedy, but it’s so smart, so authentic and so original, I can’t bring myself to describe it as such. This is one of the best movies of 2022. The Worst Person in the World is Oscar-nominated both for Trier’s screenplay and for best international feature film.