Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World earned two Oscar nominations this year, for Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay, and should have gotten a third for Renate Reinsve as Best Actress. It’s a blast to watch, particularly because Reinsve is so charming and so convincing as the main character, but there’s a superficiality to the story that made the movie less satisfying than it could have been in a different writer’s hands.
Reinsve plays Julie, a woman about to turn 30 who is trying to figure out her life, dropping out of med school as the film begins to become a photographer, where she meets Aksel, an author of underground comic books who is about 14 years her senior. They begin a relationship despite his warning to her that she still needs to find herself, that he’s too old for her, and that they’ll want different things – which, of course, eventually turns out to be true, as they meet his friends, discuss having children, and, of course, meet other people. The movie unfolds in twelve ‘chapters,’ as well as a prologue and epilogue, each showing a small anecdote or slice of Julie’s life, ranging from funny to tragic, as she navigates her love life, her family, and more.
This film succeeds because of Reinsve, who looks younger than Julie’s age despite being about 32 when the movie was filmed. She’s so compelling from the moment we first see her, with a smile that fills the screen, yet over the course of the twelve episodes that constitute the film, she not only gives the character depth but makes it clear why she is the center of this particular universe. Julie is flawed but full of life, so that we can see her make mistakes, or at least what might be mistakes, and still be completely invested in her story. She’s the prototypical character who you just believe will come out all right in the end, without becoming hackneyed or unlikeable.
The script, however, is another matter. The plot is a bit beside the point, but it depends on two very fortunate twists that seem awfully convenient for the purposes of Julie’s story, getting her to the right people and places at those moments in the film. It serves to underscore how shallow the story is: this is a woman’s late 20s as seen through the eyes of a man. Julie doesn’t seem to have any friends of her own, and never has a conversation with another woman in the film without a man there – even then, those conversations are nearly always about a man, often Julie’s father, who lives with her stepmom and their daughter and takes no interest in Julie’s life at all. The movie views the life of a woman turning 30 primarily through the question of whether she wants children, and how that affects her relationships with men. Her career is an afterthought – we barely see her pick up a camera for about 10 chapters, and when she’s working at all, it’s in a chain bookstore, with no mention of photography or another career. Even the essay she writes that goes viral is about her relationship to men. Julie does have agency, and shows it in romantic relationships, so it’s puzzling to see her portrayed as lacking initiative or authority in other aspects of her life.
The Worst Person in the World has some gorgeous shots in and around Oslo, including a running scene – every great film this year had to have a running scene, it’s in the rules – that might be the most memorable sequence of 2021 for me. There are many fantastic shots, and Kasper Tuxen’s cinematography makes this a film in which you want to just exist. It’s also funny and bittersweet and often heartwarming, but in the end, I found it all a bit exasperating, not least because Trier ends the film with an improbable epilogue drowned out by the pretentious “Waters of March” by Art Garfunkel. Reinsve is so incredible that I’d still recommend the film – and can’t get over the nominations of three women doing impersonations for Best Actress over her – but wish that the two men who wrote it had considered getting a woman’s perspective on it.
