In many ways, it’s a shame Renate Reinsve didn’t break into the Oscar race in 2021. She was so good in The Worst Person in the World that it seemed like she could beat the bigger stars in showy roles that were mid-tier. Yet, the Academy chose a different route. In this case, Reinsve was a bit of an unknown. She had done many projects in her native Norway, but none that cracked into the international consciousness. She’s far more visible to many voters now and it should be much harder to ignore her incredible performance in Sentimental Value.
A perfect performance is hard to give, but a performance that disappears into periods of being is as close as we can get. Renate Reinsve is so very good at being Nora. There are moments where it feels like we are watching a person as if we were in the room with her, as if we have been intimately acquainted with her for years. The slight and measured emotions that cross Reinsve’s face feel like the tells of someone we care about.
In a scene in which Nora, Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), and Even (Andreas Stoltenberg Ganerud) sit around discussing Agnes and Even’s son, there is something subtle that plays across Nora’s face. There is a sequence of muscle movements that feels so natural and familiar that we know without knowing precisely what she’s thinking, that this conversation has hit on something deeply painful for Nora. Reinsve’s movements after that, while unexplained through words, are obvious through her intense body language. Her fight or flight has been engaged.
It’s reminiscent of the scene we get that introduces us to Nora as an adult. She’s an actress who has a tremendous amount of anxiety about performing. When she’s in the moment, she’s good, but before that, she’s a ball of fear and anxiousness. The sequence is alternately funny for the reactions of the put upon stage technicians and emotional for the abject terror Nora is exhibiting. Reinsve hits every beat of this with perfect pitch. She’s funny, manic, fearful, angry, frustrated, and anxious. As a performer, she takes this energy and channels it, but there’s something of a loss of self in acting that both Reinsve is hitting in her performance and Nora is trying to grapple with in her roles that she’s performing.
The character of Nora is a fight between the cool collectedness she wants to show the world and the boiling, roiling emotional trauma and depression that writhes just below the surface. Renate Reinsve balances these conflicting personae in her performance. She uses Nora’s performances as a way to show us Nora’s inner being, the being she denies space in her life even as it takes its toll on her psyche. In a scene that starts in a close up, we see Nora enter a room. She immediately breaks down and cries, falling to the floor and against the bed. The camera pulls out to reveal a stage and the audience of her peers, sitting in silent contemplation of her performance. Though, we know that this is the true Nora finally able to let herself go, to bring her emotions to bear in a safe setting, Nora is convincing herself this is acting. She’s convincing herself that this prolonged and seemingly uncontrolled outburst is a performance. That’s the only way she’s able to confront her emotions.
Sentimental Value is about the ideas, feelings, pain, and sadnesses we hold ourselves back from. It’s a film that asks us to look at the person we are in the world and if that’s a healthy representation of what’s going on inside of us. The anchor of this idea is Nora’s attempts to understand how her past has molded her being in the present. Renate Reinsve gives us a performance that transcends our base understanding to reveal the truths of Nora. She’s able to disappear into Nora, then to the character Nora’s playing, and then back. She’s given us a performance that’s more than mere interpretation and shows her incredible talent as an actor. She deserves not only a nomination in Best Actress, but to win the whole thing.
