The Story Punk Podcast

Episode 044: This week on Story Punk, we begin our June international cinema series with a trip to Norway for Sentimental Value, Joachim Trier’s 2025 family drama about art, absence, memory, and the complicated wreckage parents leave behind.

The film follows sisters Nora and Agnes as they reconnect with their estranged father, Gustav, a once-celebrated filmmaker hoping to mount a comeback by turning deeply personal family history into a new movie. When Nora refuses the role he wrote for her, Gustav casts an eager Hollywood star instead, setting off a quiet emotional collision between career ambition, unresolved trauma, and the question of whether art can repair what real life has broken.

We dig into why Sentimental Value feels different from the usual Story Punk fare: more contemplative, more emotionally layered, and more interested in connection than easy answers. They discuss Gustav as a charming but deeply flawed father, the bond between Nora and Agnes, the film’s use of the family house as both memory capsule and battleground, and why the ending gestures toward healing without pretending forgiveness is simple.

They also get into Stellan Skarsgård, Elle Fanning, the film’s performances, Joachim Trier’s visual choices, the blend of present-day story and generational memory, and how Sentimental Value uses filmmaking itself as a way for damaged people to speak when ordinary conversation has failed.

Plus: Scandinavian movie vibes, absent fathers, artistic narcissism, emotional generosity, family cycles, 35mm close-ups, 16mm flashbacks, and the uneasy truth that sometimes connection is not the same thing as forgiveness.

Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.