We take a look at the latest from Norwegian director Joachim Trier, and then cycle back to the beginning of his loose trilogy about young people coping, which also includes the dire "Oslo, August 31st."
THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (A-minus) - Director Joachim Trier, writing with his regular partner Eskil Vogt, doesn't miss a step here as he takes on a fanciful excursion with a young woman searching for purpose while she tries on careers and relationships over a few years in Oslo.
Renate Reinsve is magnetic as Julie, the young adult who is in no hurry to settle in or settle down. Early on she drops out of medical school to become a photographer and a writer, and she falls for an older man, Aksel, a crass comic book artist. He is played by Anders Danielsen Lie, the star of the two previous films in the trilogy, "Reprise" and "Oslo, August 31st." By the end of this exercise, he will threaten to steal the film with one scene that halts the whirlwind and injects a profound monologue about life itself.
But until then, Trier -- like before, working in chapters and chronological loops -- lets Reinsve explore the depths of a fascinating young woman. Julie will move on from Aksel after she crashes a party and meets Elvind (Herbert Nordrum, pictured above) and engages in a mini "Before Sunrise," testing to see how many intimate moments they can share without it technically counting as cheating on their partners. It will take a second meet-cute for this to turn into a relationship.
The rest is an adventure best experienced fresh and untainted. There will be a believable psychedelic trip, an insightful moment from a passing stranger, family issues, an illness, and a life-altering decision for Julie to make. This wouldn't work without a master behind the camera and a bold performance that creates a character you can't look away from, right up until the bittersweet, perfect final shot.
REPRISE (2008) (A) - A buddy movie for the ages, Trier follows the divergent paths of childhood friends who dream of being acclaimed cutting-edge writers on the Oslo scene, just like their Salingeresque local idol. Anders Danielsen Lie is riveting as Phillip, who suffers a psychotic break after he is first to publish a successful novel. Doe-eyed Espen Klouman Hoiner is the straight-laced Erik, who is set adrift after his best pal slips away intellectually and emotionally.
Trier and Vogt made their debut with this deeply moving buddy movie, surrounding Phillip and Erik with a bunch of wise-ass prepster pals, borrowing from the '90s ensemble work of Whit Stillman and Noah Baumbach in tolerating snotty 20-somethings. Here the interactions among the satellite friends are subtly rendered, allowing individual quirks to peek through and capturing the little ways in which young men banter with each other and also gossip behind each others' backs.
Trier deftly walks a fine line between deadpan humor and at-times crushing emotional scenes. His secret weapon here is Viktoria Winge at Kari, the woman who unwittingly inspired Phillip's breakdown and then must endure his attempts to put things back together. In her film debut, Winge has a Bjork-like innocence but a sophisticated approach this to painful relationship. (They have a meet-cute at a concert featuring one of the buddies who belts out his band's signature tune, "Finger Fucked by the Prime Minister.")
Hoiner as Erik, who now must work in the shadow of his successful friend, creates a charming bumbler with seemingly no clue how to handle a girlfriend, a rejected novel, or the eventual interactions with that idol. Trier brings the boys back together at the end for a wedding, and everyone still feels a bit fragile, as if Phillip and Erik are figuring out how to navigate the next phase, now that they've finally emerged into true adulthood.
BONUS TRACKS
From an early scene in "Reprise," the young male brooder's go-to music, Joy Division, with "New Dawn Fades":
And the boys disrupt a boring party by blasting Le Tigre's "Deceptacon":
"Worst Person" has a head-spinningly eclectic soundtrack, from Billie Holiday to techno, that never interferes with the story. There is a particular "Garden State"-ish slant on sensitive singer-songwriters from the '70s, like Harry Nilsson's "I Said Goodbye to Me":
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