Throughout Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier’s humanist, candid and melancholy Oslo-set romantic drama, “The Worst Person in the World,” you may find yourself wondering who the titular character might be. Is it Julia (Renata Reinsve), the indecisive, impulsive, entrancing heroine at the center of the story? Is it Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), Julia’s older boyfriend, a brilliant, edgy comic book artist? Is it the sweetly submissive Eivind (Herbert Nordrum) one of Julia’s other suitors? The truth is that none of them are “the worst” even if they may, at times, feel that way; indeed it’s their fumbling, failing, flailing attempts to run towards happiness that make them so relatable, and ultimately, lovable. “The Worst Person in the World” is incredibly good company, as it turns out.
Reinsve’s performance as the luminous, yet challenging Julia, who learns to live and love in her own way, earned her the Best Actress prize at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Written by Trier and longtime collaborator Eskil Vogt, the film declares from the outset that it will be told in, “12 chapters, a prologue and an epilogue,” which offers a kind of comforting shape and guide to the story. The prologue plunges the viewer into Julia’s world in a swift montage of her youthful exploits, and as Chapter One begins, she’s already shacked up with Aksel, and the themes that will dictate their relationship, specifically their creative work and the decision to have children, are set in place.
Aksel, a successful artist and writer, wants kids, while Julia wants what Aksel has, a career, a purpose. She dabbles in photography and writing while working a low-wage job in a bookstore, but her constant search to fill the unknown void within sparks a desire for rebellion, which she indulges with some light wedding crashing, where she meets, and flirts with, Eivind.
There’s a propulsiveness and a playfulness to the structure and style of “The Worst Person in The World,” and a willingness to experiment with time and subjectivity to illustrate Julia’s state of mind. The fantastical elements enhance the emotional realism, whether it’s the way time stops in an exhilarating sequence in which she finally chooses something for herself, consequences be damned, or a nightmarish mushroom trip that crystallizes all of her anxiety and trauma. The exquisitely curated soundtrack offers texture, context and resonance to the film too.
Reinsve is utterly transfixing in role that we don’t often get to see, as a complicated, yearning woman who wants more than just love and domesticity. She’s unpredictable in the best and worst ways, her flightiness tempered by the tender soulfulness that Lie brings to his performance of the sometimes prickly and patronizing Aksel. Nordrum’s Eivind is the light to Aksel’s dark, which Julia bounces between, but Trier and Vogt avoid any easy answers or clear-cut resolutions.
“The Worst Person in the World” is a love story that is as messy, sad and joyful as any real ones are. It is effervescently, swooningly romantic, yet filled with the deepest sorrow, capturing all of the very real feelings of falling in love, falling out of love, and of the most painful and bittersweet losses. It captures the agony of goodbye, the frustration of trying to find yourself, the sweetness of forgiveness and redemption, and ultimately, the clarity of contentment. In its emotional specificity and integrity to character, it speaks to universal sentiments, with moments that are incisive, even illuminating. It’s a film that defies genre, and often convention, and is a work that has the potential to curl up inside you and take up residence if you’re open to it. Though perhaps, all it needs to do is simply serve as a reminder that it’s okay to be the worst person in the world sometimes.
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‘THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD’
4 stars (out of 4)
In Norwegian with English subtitles
MPAA rating: R (for sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and some language)
Running time: 2:07
Where to watch: In theaters Friday
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