Entertainment
2026’s Best Actress Underdog Stunned in This Tremendous Coming-of-Age Drama
Heading into awards season, Renate Reinsve seemed like a lock for a Best Actress nomination for her performance in the Danish-Norwegian drama, Sentimental Value, which was also primed for major Oscar consideration in numerous categories. No matter how strong her performance was, she was due for a nomination after being rudely snubbed in 2021 for her revelatory performance in The Worst Person in the World, her previous collaboration with Sentimental Value writer-director, Joachim Trier. Receiving critical acclaim and nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature at the Oscars upon release, Trier’s coming-of-age dramedy announced Reinsve as a seminal actor of her generation, giving a tour-de-force performance as a young woman stuck in the aimless pit known as everyday life. The Worst Person in the World will be wholly relatable, if not painfully true-to-life, for most viewers, and Reinsve portrays the perfect avatar of twentysomething disillusionment.
Renate Reinsve Gave Her Breakthrough Performance in ‘The Worst Person in the World’
Reinsve and Trier have proven to be one of the signature actor-director pairs of their respective era, with the two first teaming up in Oslo, August 31st, the actor’s feature film debut. Being two artists drawn to sympathetic but searing depictions of intimacy and melancholy set against the backdrop of art, the pair’s special touch has produced cinematic gold, but they’ve only been properly recognized by the Academy for Sentimental Value. However, with Jessie Buckley from Hamnet standing as the prohibitive favorite for Best Actress, it seems that Reinsve will have to wait her turn for the statuette. She is one of four acting nominees for Sentimental Value, alongside Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning, and Stellan Skarsgård.
The Worst Person in the World follows Julie (Reinsve), a medical student in Oslo who jumps from major to major and partner to partner, unable to lock down her direction in life. Pivoting from medicine to psychology, then eventually photography, she aspires for something more life-fulfilling and imaginative, and this is the same for her romantic life. Joachim Trier’s films tend to have one foot in the closely observed real world and another in the realm of a surrealist fantasy. While Sentimental Value is icier in tone and grounded in its scope, The Worst Person in the World reaches for the sky, indulging in outright fantastical sequences. The film’s tonal shifting mirrors the day-to-day life of Julie, who can go from elated to defeated in minutes. Julie is, while maybe not idyllic, a heightened superstar version of the average undergraduate with incredible knowledge but lacking in the judgment and stability department.
‘The Worst Person in the World’ Tackles the Absurdity and Harshness of Figuring Out What To Do in Life
Before playing a stage actor reckoning with a surprise visit from her absent father in Sentimental Value, Renate Reinsve confronted the most lofty mysteries about humanity in The Worst Person in the World. Trier’s films deal with weighty subjects involving life, death, and purpose, but he makes them feel tangible to the viewer, interpreting our enduring crises through literal imagery and allegory. Most of all, Reinsve’s performance, which earned her the Best Actress prize at Cannes in 2021, is a stunning feat of internal modulation. In scenes with her two romantic interests, Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie) and Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), and while she’s roaming parties and the streets of Oslo without a care in the world, Reinsve conveys so much through subtle facial gestures.
This invaluable trait of hers paid dividends in Sentimental Value, a film centered around a generation’s worth of reticence. In The Worst Person in the World, she adds grave pathos to the plight of this age demographic, one that relates to a global audience, but particularly Americans amid our current economic distress, by appearing inscrutable, to the point that showing indifference is the only solution. Whether in reality or fantastical mode, Reinsve holds her own as her character embarks on a rollicking and oftentimes unsettling odyssey.
Renate Reinsve’s grace and sheer magnitude resulted in an all-encompassing performance that will make you laugh, cry, and reflect on your own place in the world simultaneously. The role of Julie is the kind of part actors dream of playing, and Joachim Trier’s literary writing and shrewd character dynamics are responsible for his films consistently featuring earth-shattering performances. His love for Julie, and, by proxy, Reinsve herself, translates on the screen, as the film is an elegiac tribute to a period of free-spirited youth and vigor that filmmakers are always trying to channel. Sure, Julie may be selfish, and even a complete mess half the time, but weren’t we all at one point? If this performance didn’t demand an Academy Award, then who knows what does.
The Worst Person in the World is available to stream on Tubi in the U.S.
- Release Date
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October 13, 2021
- Runtime
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127 minutes
- Director
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Joachim Trier
- Writers
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Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt
- Producers
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Thomas Robsahm, Tom Kjeseth, Andrea Berentsen Ottmar
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Anders Danielson Lie
Julie
