(contains very minor spoilers)
In his first narrative film since 2017’s Thelma, Joachim Trier takes a much more melancholy and tearjerking approach to existentialism and the effervescence of life.
The opening montage of this film says it all. We as humans just can’t decide what we want to do. As Julie bounces through different pathways and aspirations, she becomes more and more estranged from her true self (playing a “supporting role in her life”, as she remarks). On top of that, the prospect of child-bearing threatens to take the choice and the rhythm away from her completely.
In Joachim Trier’s new, clean and uniquely stylistic film The Worst Person in the World, this dure existentialism is played in both comedic and bittersweet fashion over the course of 130 minutes, as Julie manoeuvres the last years of her 20s (after which, we can only expect, she will become at least 0.5x less fun). She can’t decide what she wants from life; she proclaims to be more interested in the mind than the body, only to later publish an article on Facebook, which not only completely contradicts this, but is also by far the most hilarious, paradoxical metaphor I have heard this year. Her restlessness is at the expense of those around her, but is also so fascinating as something we can all relate to.
But this is a whole other thing: who is “the worst person in the world”? Is it her? Is it Aksel? I don’t think that’s the point. What Trier is doing is giving us the prerequisite hyperbole that something about her or the film is the absolute, superlative “worst”. Maybe THIS is why I found her restlessness slightly annoying. Trier is showing us that, with the effervescence of life, things aren’t always so black and white. The film is about a woman who jumps between several different men—does that make her bad? The story is told in 12 chapters, a prologue and an epilogue whose names are completely irrelevant, but does that make IT bad?
Two previous collaborators with Trier, Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie create a beautiful, formidable pair, whose friendship is what holds all of the chaos together, and what eventually brings Julie into the light. The dynamic between them makes you root for them until the end; their performances have us in their hands, and Trier knows this, clearly having faith in their performances by pushing us to the limits of sorrow and joy, anger and hysterics with them. The end of the story (which was co-written by Eskil Vogt, I should point out, who is another previous collaborator of Trier’s), is Trier providing a playground for his players, saying “do your absolute worst”.
Speaking of the ending, what was interesting was the obscurity. Everyone else that Julie cared about has been taken by common tragedies of modern life in some way, yet she was given another chance to carry on free. Will she? Won’t she? Is it the presence of others that made her so restless? That would certainly make sense given her turn-over rate at the start of the film.
All this is, in all it’s nuanced and comedic and beautiful and sad glory, is what makes The Worst Person in the World hit you harder than many other films released this year, both because of the sublimely relatable subject matter, and because of Trier’s fresh, confident, funny-for-the-sake-of-it style, leaving us wishing if it hadn’t taken this long for him to return.
tues 