I saw the 2025 Cannes film with a 19-minute ovation and here’s my verdict

After making waves at Cannes Film Festival with its 15-minute standing ovation (or 19-minute, depending on which clapometer you trust most), the longest for 2025, I knew I had to go out of my way to make sure I saw Sentimental Value.

As one of 22 films in competition for Cannes’ top honour, the prestigious Palme D’Or, that rapturous reception put its name on everybody’s lips at the festival – and at the top of the list to win.

And I’d agree, as one of the most impressive and impactful films I saw at Cannes this year.

Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi in its native Norway) provides a fascinating window into a dysfunctional family in Oslo and all the hurt they’ve witnessed and carried over the generations in their faded but quirky home.

It’s emotional and powerful without being overblown, managing to remain entirely realistic in its story and interpersonal relationships without ever slipping into the mundane – and it’s also peppered throughout with quite dark humour.

In hands less assured than that of director and co-writer Joachim Trier, we might be saying ‘so what?’ of a film about a washed-up filmmaker (Stellan Skarsgård) trying to reconnect with the daughters he walked out on after divorcing their mother as a child, wooing the one who has become a successful actress in her own right with a part written specially for her in his new movie.

But Sentimental Value not only handles these tensions expertly but makes the house of the Borg family – being packed up by sisters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) after their mother’s death – a character in its own right.

Indeed, it’s introduced first of anyone in the film’s opening moments, and we learn more about its curious composition and its previous inhabitants in scenes interspersed throughout the film.

Skarsgård’s Gustav actually wants to make a film about his mother, who died by suicide in the house when he was a young boy after being tortured by Nazis during the war.

Trier previously delighted Cannes in 2021 with The Worst Person in the World, which won previous collaborator Reinsve the best actress prize and went on to nab two Oscar nominations.

And not that this should count for the quality of Sentimental Value, which speaks for itself, but – curiously – should it win, it would give co-distributor Neon the record-breaking honour of a sixth consecutive Palme win, following previous victors Parasite, Titane, Triangle of Sadness, Anatomy of a Fall, and last year’s winner, Anora.

Perhaps Sentimental Value’s loudest argument for victory at Cannes though is its brilliant powerhouse performances: Skarsgård enjoys the best role he’s had in years as a charismatic but arrogant and slightly desperate 70-year-old, determined to evoke past glories.

Capturing all the shades required in a role this complex – and some – this could mark Skarsgård’s first Oscar nomination in an otherwise storied career.

And as for his character’s comeback goal, that would also mean casting his grandson in his new film – despite the reluctance of the boy’s mother, younger sister Agnes (Lilleaas), who once starred in a film of her father’s 20 years ago, before leaving the profession after feeling abandoned by him post-production.

Lilleaas provides a perfect counter-balance to Reinsve’s anger and hostility towards her father as Nora, which manifests in a panic attack ahead of her new stage performance. When Nora turns down her father’s offer of a role, he instead recruits Hollywood starlet Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning, continuing a run of great performances in a notably wide variety of films), who is charmed by him at a film festival and eager to please.

But the film is, undeniably, Reinsve’s, who allows Trier to expose the full range of her talents like a raw nerve; I expect to see her name in contention too come awards season.

Lest this all sound overly angsty though, the family shares a propensity towards dry humour which flares up from time to time – like when Gustav tells Rachel she’s sitting on the stool his mother stepped off to end he life, only for Agnes to later reveal it’s from Ikea. Or when Gustav buys his grandson a bunch of arthouse DVDs for his ninth birthday, including cult erotic thriller The Piano Teacher, as you do.

There’s also an all-too-familiar junket scene in which Gustav and Rachel, pre-plugging the film after partnering with Netflix, end up partaking in an interview that becomes every journalist’s most embarrassing nightmare.

My only quibble with Sentimental Value is that it does start to tread water a little as it nears the end. As with virtually every film I’ve seen during the 2025 edition of Cannes, it could have lost 20 minutes from its 135-minute run-time.

But should it prove victorious at Saturday’s closing ceremony then I’ll consider it a worthy victor.

Sentimental Value premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. It is yet to receive a UK release date.

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