IFFR 2022Film Review - The Worst Person in the World (2021)

Among the exciting screenings of the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2022 was buying the ticket for the surprise film. Clicked play, lo and behold, there it was, the third installment of the Oslo Trilogy, by the Norwegian director Joachim Trier. Premiered at the Palme d’Or competition section of Cannes Film Festival 2021, with a nomination for The Best International Feature Film for the Oscars 2022, “The Worst Person in the World” rights were acquired by MUBI for India, UK, and Ireland.

This is a coming-of-age story in twelve chapters, complete with a prologue and an epilogue. It shouldn’t be watched as a spiritual journey (my opinion), but rather as a mature rom-com. We follow Julie (Renate Reinsve) walking the line of adult decisions on her love and professional life. The focus is generously on romance, performing a kick on social standards and expectations for a normative timeline. On how an individual is chasing life milestones and acting according to age. The draining struggle of being “normal”—nearly no one relates to this, I mean it in the emotional sense of social normality, and there’s nothing new here. It is a concept we’ve seen dozens of times in cinema, from the escapist example of “500 Days of Summer” (2009) to the most profound one “Waking Life” (2001). And it is expected to keep investigating through this medium.

Yet, “The Worst Person in the World” has quite a significance in the anatomy of the social and emotional life of an individual. The self-centred attention is well executed by the face of Reinsve, modest and clumsy, and adds a distinctive realistic approach on a very real (and, honestly, flat) self-exploration journey. This clears the shots out from the frequently used beautified characters, telling us how we and our feelings should be. What is more, this gives room for creativity. The long shot on paused life, while Julie and Eivind (Herbert Nordrum) get to live a romantic encounter beyond the passage of time, provides a memorable visualization of daydreaming. While in other scenes, like partying with drugs, we get a high-end, inventive depiction of mind plays.

Nevertheless, this film has some illuminating characters, such as Aksel, the long relationship of Julie, that never makes it through, because of the age difference (equals the difference in status quo and so on, but this is obvious). Aksel (played Anders Danielsen Lie, the second recurring actor of the Oslo Trilogy, along with Renate Reinsve) is an attractive persona, unsatisfied by his professional success, and conscious about his life path. His condition, drained by the powerful emotions of youth, resonates with what one might call consolation to what is coming/what is here. “Knowledge and memories of stupid, futile things, that nobody cares about…I reached a point in life where suddenly, it just happened. I began to worship what had been. And now I have nothing. I have no future. I can only look back.” Simple, isn’t it?