Film Review: The Worst Person in the World
Images Courtesy of Madman Entertainment.
Cinematic love stories of real craft and inspiration are, at the moment, rare. Even rarer is the film that will use its romance to dig into the kind of questions we all ask about ourselves. The Worst Person in the World, coming to Australian theatres this month after a splashy debut at Cannes, is the kind of story that can knock you on your heels – its saga of constant, vague doubt about one’s own path in life is achingly familiar.
Julie (Norwegian newcomer Renate Reinsve, in her first lead role) is ricocheting wildly between careers – in just the opening prologue, she goes from medicine, to psychology, to photography – each time completely sure of her whole-life upheaval and rejuvenated by the fresh start. And yet: she’s ill at ease. She’s pushing thirty, and all this turbulence carries with it an undercurrent of existential angst. Will she ever find herself? Time is eking away, and a poor relationship with her essentially-absentee father doesn’t help. Over the course of the film, she falls in and out of love, experiences joy and tragedy, and approaches a kind of self-actualisation that’s hard-earned but incredibly gratifying to watch.
Director and co-writer Joachim Trier weaves this journey in cleverly with some really meaningful, captivating and refreshingly sensual romance. When was the last time a rom-com was as comfortable with genuine sexual tension? As driven by characters who so clearly desire one another? It’s such a delight. Every scene, romantic or not, plays to the viewer with remarkable authenticity.
Much of that depends on the chemistry, and casting, of the actors. Reinsve is perfect as Julie. It really is a tremendous performance: empathetic, funny, endearingly flawed. She embodies Julie’s restless, in-the-moment presence; her eyes light up with amusement, anger, attraction, woe, and a cheeky playfulness as Julie burns through impactful experiences like firewood in winter. The mark she leaves on the film is second only to that of Trier. His direction, though unlike his last feature, the terrific 2017 queer supernatural thriller Thelma, is attentive and winningly stylish. To be too specific about some of Worst Person’s ambitious technical flourishes (one of which is one of the most stunning sequences I’ve seen this year) would be to ruin the fun. Others are inseparable from the film’s appeal, though – including its segmented structure. The story is divided into 12 discreet chapters (as well as a prologue and epilogue) with punchy, suggestive title-cards like “Bad Timing” and “Bobcat Wrecks Christmas”. It’s an ingenious addition to this very long-spanning, progressively-evolving story.
That’s the thing – this is a film that understands that people change slowly, no matter how much they try to reinvent themselves. It’s also a movie that largely has time for Julie’s partners and their own emotional subjectivity – even and especially when she is being the titular Worst. Every character we meet registers quickly and deeply. This is the young, fun cast of your well-worn Hollywood romcom, without the bare-bones characterisation.
And in the tradition of Hollywood romcoms, of course, it’s important to note the plot unfolds in a context of the privileged and fortunate. Julie is white, financially comfortable, youthful, attractive – and every apartment and house she mixes in would feel at home in an aspirational Instagram feed (is all of Norway a minimalist paradise?). Worst Person sidesteps the tone-deafness we might associate with the romcom à la Katherine Heigl, however: its core themes of navigating life and love are entirely universal, and at one point it takes direct aim at socially-conscious urban millennials prone to empty performance of progressive sympathies.
Better, then, that Worst Person hitches the wings of its story to the all-too-millennial anxieties of Julie’s tumultuous life. She could be anything, and the choice paralysis of her potential just pours forth from the screen. Trier not only gets how it feels to agonise over your own direction – he knows how to communicate it with real cinematic verve.It’s emotional, and unsparing. But – and this is what makes it transcendent – Julie learns. It’s a fundamentally forgiving movie: to its heroine and to its audience. You’ll stumble, and you’ll get lost. But you’re not the worst. You’re just a human being like the rest of us.
The Worst Person in the World is on general release in Australia from Christmas Day.