Sentimental Value marks the latest project between Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt. Following their Oscar nominated work for The Worst Person in the World, the co-writers remain intimate with the exploration of anxieties and crisis but this time within a family. Offscreen Central had the amazing opportunity to discuss with Vogt about the film and tackling both relationships between parent and child and sibling to sibling.

Kenzie Vanunu: Congratulations on the film! I just saw it over the weekend, where you actually did a Q&A fresh off the plane after!
Eskil Vogt: [Laughs] Oh, I have no memory of what we said. A blur.

Kenzie Vanunu: I was going to say, I cannot imagine like getting off a plane from that far and immediately talking about it! [Laughs] But it’s such a beautiful film. I saw it days ago and I still feel like I am recovering emotionally from it.

Sentimental Value feels just as personal as The Worst Person in the World, but a bit more grown up as we are navigating a relationship between parent child as well. What was the starting point with this script diving into more of a family dynamic? 
Eskil Vogt: The starting point was actually doing something about sisters and that dynamic. And the idea of growing up in the same family with the same parents, but having completely different childhoods because of age difference. Your parents are going through something different at that time when you’re young and you remember your childhood differently than your sister did.

And also you have your own personality that brings out something completely different in your parents. So that was something we started out with and also knowing that we wanted to work again with Renate Reinsve. So she would be one of those sisters, which is like a wonderful thing to know when you’re writing. So that was the starting point. And in the beginning, the father would be absent and we worked on it. And after a while, we thought it would be funny if he made an appearance, maybe like late in the film. And then we started discovering that character and he like barged into the writing room, threatening to take the film. And we had to kind of rein him in. But that was that kind of the father daughter relationships. That was the important thing.

Kenzie Vanunu: I love that. I have a daughter, she just turned four and I’ve been feeling this weight of what do I pass on to her from what my parents passed on to me. But I think it really touches on such an interesting idea of like sister to sister and like that kind of relationship. And then also father to daughter, just like as someone who’s a sister, but also a parent. I think this script really touches on that with both sister to sister and father to daughter. How did you approach the structure with parent to child and sibling to sibling? And which story felt more emotional or therapeutic to you?
Eskil Vogt: That’s a very interesting question. I guess the story between the sisters, because it’s such a pure relationship. I feel the way that they, I mean, not spoiling too much, but in the growing up, the older sister protected the younger one. And now that they’re grown, it’s kind of inverse. You know, the younger sister’s love for the older is so pure and it moves me every time I see the film, especially because of the actors. So that was just a lovely experience. 

I don’t know if I could describe the father daughter relationships as therapeutic because I’m still scared of that in my own life. I have a son and a daughter, and I feel that it’s such a complicated thing being a parent, you know, and I’m not sure I solved it. So I think I projected some fears into Gustav Borg, but I’m not sure I’ve landed on the right side of that yet. I will have to ask them in 20 years. [Laughs]
Kenzie Vanunu: Every time I watch a movie, like my daughter just turned four, like obviously we have no dialogue about these kinds of experiences. You’re always wondering, ‘am I doing the right thing?’ I’m watching cinematic parents and I’m like, ‘this is what I don’t want to do.’ So, I can’t imagine writing one!
Eskil Vogt: Yeah, it’s always on my mind. That’s why we write them. It’s what we’re going through into the film. So now Joachim’s [Trier] a father as well. So yeah, it’s definitely something we discuss a lot.

Kenzie Vanunu: I love the juxtaposition of Rachel and Gustav, where Rachel is used to the current film system and just wants to make ‘great art’ and Gustav is navigating the new way the film industry works. His reaction to the theatrical release question got a huge laugh at my screening. Can you talk about writing that dynamic?
Eskil Vogt: Well, in the beginning, we were kind of resisting the meta element because we were afraid of just like, oh, that’s too easy. That’s in jokes and whatever. And what we started to work with was like real human dilemmas and complexities about sisters and fathers and children and all that. But it just made so much sense to us to make the father an aging film director and opening him up in that way and that generation of artists to put so much subtle emotion into their work. But when in their personal relationship, they can’t really communicate or they shy away from that or they make jokes to like avoid everything that’s hard. And so that character just made sense to us. And then, of course, when we opened that door, that’s the world we know super well. So it was so easy to to like add jokes and funny situations. And I was like, ‘oh, those are the American characters. So that’s the French film critic.’ And we know these people and love them, so we can also make some jokes at their expense. And, of course, we had to reign that in a bit, which we cut a lot of jokes from the first draft to the second to make it more more like real people and not make easy jokes.

And that was also the challenge with the American actor, that Elle Fanning plays, because she’s she could so easily become just a cliche of a superficial American going to Europe and, you know, and you make all those jokes about different culture and whatever. And we wanted her to be a really serious person who wants to make good stuff and wants to delve into that different world of real artists making film and then being maybe becoming kind of the adult in a way of realizing that she’s she might be miscast in this, you know, and not making the joke that she’s a bad actor. She’s good, but she’s not right for that kind of personal film. And that should be also her awareness, you know, being about that. It shouldn’t just be us pointing it out or Gustav, so that was what we tried to do is like to have fun with that because it’s a fun world, but not have it at the characters’ expense too much.

Kenzie Vanunu: I love how sincere she’s written. It’s really like you said, you could go so easily into being like a caricature of like a ‘popcorn actor’ wanting to do ‘something serious.’ But you can see how sincere she is about cinema and the art form. And it’s really special. 

I was thinking about it like that with the way that he is so protective of her, like when that press conference or the journalist kind of coming after her and Gustav is so defensive over her. And then even the way he talks to her when she comes to him to say, like, maybe this isn’t the right part. Can you talk about writing that dynamic with them and the way Gustav is with Rachel versus the way he is with his own daughters and just kind of like how he got there with actors versus his own children? 
Eskil Vogt: Thank you for pointing that out. That’s something we talked about in the writing room that hasn’t been commented on that much. But it’s I feel that’s the way the movie kind of works is that everything is communicated indirectly. So I think, you know, Elle Fanning’s character playing a role he wrote for his daughter, he learns a bit about becoming a father or being a responsible father or showing his paternal emotions with her that he can’t do with his daughter. But I feel he learned something, this is a little bit of a spoiler, but when he gives up some of his ambition to be kind to this actress. It means he’s growing a bit and that prepares for some kind of reconciliation with his daughter, even though she wasn’t present in those scenes. She doesn’t know what he’s gone through, but what we know. And I feel that’s kind of his practicing his ways.

I think he discovered something in himself there that, you know, art isn’t everything, and again, that’s the contrast of that character as well. Maybe he manages to create his own family within the film crew and the actors. And that means he gets a lot of that kind of sense of belonging that you should maybe have with your family, which means he ignores his family a lot. But I also think he grows in that relationship. 
Kenzie Vanunu: Yeah, I think it’s kind of like that conversation about some people don’t have the tools to communicate. And this is how he’s gaining those tools. Yes, it’s late in life and should have been there far more. But it’s really interesting to watch it unfold, especially because it’s a role written for his daughter.

But I love the idea of him, even aside from how personal the script that he’s written is, like him interlacing his personal life with this story. Like him approaching the cinematographer is a really special scene. I love the idea of cinema being an artform preserved forever encapsulating a moment in time, the themes and ideas of the time, the iconography of the period. These two men who feel time has passed and age is slowing them down, but they can bond over the preservation their art has provided. Stellan is so beautiful and intimate in that moment. Can you talk about writing that scene
Eskil Vogt: Well, thank you for pointing that out again. I mean, I was the scene that most people wanted to cut before.
Kenzie Vanunu: Oh, no, it’s one of my favorite scenes of the film!
Eskil Vogt: You can understand the logic of it because it’s kind of one step removed from the father sister story. People said, ‘oh, do you really need that?’ And it was like, ‘yes, we do!’ Because it’s it’s the moment he realizes that life is approaching the end. You should put your house in order. And also, as fun to make films, when you don’t have that crew of friends and you’re making it in another way and you’re doing it for Netflix, with the with the young cinematographer who is sending you mood boards. [Laughs] So, for me, it’s a very important scene. And it’s also one that like pushes him towards his daughter in a way, because he realizes that this film is being made in a way that he’s not comfortable with. And she’s part of that because she’s not there. She’s not doing the role. 
Kenzie Vanunu: I love the idea of that being how it comes to terms to him of like life is passing him by and he needs to do things the way he wants. That makes me so sad because I wanted to cut it. It’s such a special scene!
Eskil Vogt: They tend to agree now when they see how we shot it and how it’s acted and they say, ‘well, we were wrong.’ [Laughs] So I’m really glad that it stayed in. 

Kenzie Vanunu: It’s such a great moment of what the film is about! Well, that’s all of our time. But thank you so much for talking with me. I’m so excited for more people to see the film and for you to have another great award season.
Eskil Vogt: Well, thank you. It’s been so nice to talk to you.

Sentimental Value is in select theaters today!