The Worst Per­son in the World – first-look review

Julie (Renate Reinsve) is in her twen­ties and she doesn’t know what the fuck she wants. She has a poor rela­tion­ship with her father and is ter­mi­nal­ly bored. After ditch­ing attempts to study med­i­cine and psy­chol­o­gy to pur­sue pho­tog­ra­phy, she embarks on a romance with old­er man Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), an accom­plished car­toon­ist who, after they sleep togeth­er for the first time, tells her they should break it off. ​“We’re only going to hurt each oth­er,” he says. Julie agrees, and pro­ceeds to fall mad­ly in love. 

Joachim Trier’s fifth fea­ture is a sweet, sad, extreme­ly fun­ny char­ac­ter study that gets to the heart of how it feels to be on the cusp of true adult­hood and com­plete­ly ambiva­lent about it. The film’s title may or may not refer to its flighty pro­tag­o­nist; more like­ly it’s the feel­ing every­one expe­ri­ences at some point in their lives, when they let some­one down or are casu­al­ly cru­el with their words or actions. Pre­sent­ed in 12 chap­ters with a pro­logue, epi­logue and omni­scient female nar­ra­tor, the nar­ra­tive spec­ta­cle is part of the fun – think mil­len­ni­al Amélie with­out the Man­ic Pix­ie Dream Girl clichés. 

Julie isn’t exact­ly the worst per­son in the world, she’s a young woman with brains and beau­ty and absolute­ly no idea what she wants out of life. She dab­bles in pho­tog­ra­phy and writ­ing while hold­ing down a job at a local book­store. But as her rela­tion­ship with Aksel con­tin­ues she realis­es she isn’t con­tent just being Someone’s Girl­friend. A chance encounter with the affa­ble Eivind (Her­bert Nor­drum) caus­es fur­ther doubt in her mind. ​“I feel like a spec­ta­tor in my own life,” she explains. 

The sound­track is a mix of Trier’s reg­u­lar com­pos­er Ola Fløt­tum and Har­ry Nils­son deep cuts, under­scor­ing the sen­sa­tion of famil­iar­i­ty and uncan­ni­ness. The events depict­ed in each chap­ter are dis­parate; some amus­ing, oth­ers ten­der. Togeth­er they form a patch­work of a woman in progress that con­tains mul­ti­tudes. From a riotous shrooms trip to an awe-inspir­ing roman­tic sequence with shades of mag­i­cal real­ism, it’s as messy and unpre­dictable as love itself. 

The trio of cen­tral char­ac­ters are per­fect­ly realised, with Reinsve shar­ing great chem­istry with both Danielsen Lie and Nor­drum. They bick­er con­stant­ly and scold each oth­er for their per­ceived flaws – they are com­plex and frus­trat­ing but unfail­ing­ly human. 

It’s not just the minu­ti­ae of human behav­iour and rela­tion­ships that Tri­er and his screen­writ­ing part­ner Eskil Vogt are able to com­mit to screen. Wry obser­va­tions about top­ics rang­ing from under­ground comics to the Gen X‑Gen Y divide and fear of death add spark to the already quotable dia­logue. The film is fre­quent­ly laugh-out-loud fun­ny, which might come as a sur­prise for those famil­iar with Tri­er and Vogt’s past work.

But there’s a truth behind every pithy utter­ance which feels nov­el, and when the script veers toward heartache it hits hard­er for how much we’ve come to care for the three odd­balls at the film’s cen­tre. It’s ear­ly days at Cannes 2021, but The Worst Per­son in the World already feels like a future clas­sic, and Renate Reinsve is hope­ful­ly a star on the rise.

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