VIFF 2021 REVIEW | "The Worst Person in the World" a Mixed Bag of Chapters from the Life
8/12 ForReel Score | 3.5/5 Stars
The “coming-of-age” genre descriptor, usually assigned to films featuring characters on the cusp of adolescence, navigating their rocky teen years, or staring down the barrel of life post-graduation, may just find a new resonance for those approaching their thirties with Joachim Trier’s latest, The Worst Person in the World.
Charting four years via twelve chapters (plus a prologue and an epilogue) in the life of Oslo-native Julie (Renate Reinsve), the film is a sprawling but closely observed and intimate tale of a millennial woman reckoning with the unexpected predicament of her arrested development, floundering with a dogged grace through the disillusionment of her late twenties she didn’t prepare for. Julie is a woman who, though well into the stage of life known as “adulthood,” is still very much “coming of age,” still grappling with her wandering eyes, her sexual urges, her professional goals, and her notions of selfhood.
Unlike the title of Trier’s film suggests, though, Julie’s unrest and indecision do not make her the “worst person in the world.” This may be an abject title she gives herself as she wrestles with herself internally, but the truth is that she is just figuring out her route at her own pace—like we all are—and that this pace may not necessarily align with the spiritual navigating being done by others. Reinsve, in a Cannes Best Actress-winning performance, embodies all the tumult of her character’s wild and wavering inhibitions, her angst filtered into pointed attacks as often as it is re-directed inwards.
Reinsve’s close working relationship with Trier is evident, and the two have submitted an incredibly authentic portrait of the beautiful flaws in a failing upward humanity. It may seem a tricky assignment on paper, to depict a woman in a state of self-appointed stasis and make it consistently entertaining, but the two have struck bedrock—a not yet fully illuminated stage of life—and made it both endearingly buoyant and emotionally grounded. Trier’s choices in filmmaking, whether in the soundtrack or the clever editing, make The Worst Person in the World both an elegant and playful affair. An unexpectedly heart wrenching performance from Anders Danielsen Lie (who also plays a key role in the subplot of another VIFF selection, Bergman Island) in the film’s latter half adds a sobering dimension of existential malaise.
But for all the work that is done in crafting fully fleshed-out characters, there are also questionable inconsistencies in tone, as well as trivial moments tossed into the narrative seemingly at random. Whereas the first stretches of Julie’s trials are narrated, for example, the latter half of Trier’s film does away with the omniscient voice almost entirely. Later in the film, a scene in which Julie takes psilocybin mushrooms—yes, there is one of those scenes—quickly goes from a grounded and compelling textural depiction of a trip to a Comedy Network “Tales from the Trip” glorification of what a teenager can only hope taking hallucinogens is like. While one might appreciate Trier’s stabs at humour, especially with the emotional heft of his film’s other chapters, you also get the sense that he is trying on a hat that just doesn’t suit him—or, doesn’t suit this film specifically.
But while some chapters of Julie may be weaker than others, the complete biography that they serve is still strong, still sensitively written and acutely realized. Trier works with cinematographer Kasper Tuxen to once again make Oslo looks like a sparkling idyll of 21st century living. Fans of Trier’s previous two “Oslo Trilogy” films—Reprise and Oslo, 31 August—should find this to be his most dazzlingly affirming work yet. Trier’s capturing of the “little moments” between lovers alone make The Worst Person in the World a delight, a story that speaks to us well beyond its pages.
