(title amended from Paul Simon’s "Mother and Child Reunion")
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue below [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)
However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
In the general mode of my just-after-New Year's posting, this one will also consist of concise comments for a couple of reasons: (1) I’ve got a lot of other time commitments this week, including some long-overdue house cleaning, and (2) more importantly, for reasons I’ll clarify a bit more soon I’m not sure I’m the best person to provide an analysis of this film as it just doesn’t connect all that securely with me despite being lauded by so many others. As always with Foreign Films you’ll have to decide if you want to read subtitles (unless you speak Norwegian in this case [although nothing is said about Nobel Peace Prizes or acquiring Greenland so don’t rent it in hopes of that kind of prattle; however, a good bit of the dialogue’s in English if that helps you decide to watch]), then you’ll need to decide if you’re in the mood for a family drama with years of tension between a father and his 2 adult daughters, finally you might be a bit confused as to why it opens with the long-owned family house talking to us. If you’re still on board after all that, the basic plot (with much more detail available here) is that noted (but declining) filmmaker Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård) has been mostly away from his daughters, Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), since his divorce from ex-wife Sissel (Ida Marianne Vassbotn Klasson), mainly shooting his films away from Norway while the girls were raised in the Oslo family home. Sissel dies, so Gustav returns, attempting to cast stage-actor Nora in his latest film that deals with his mother’s suicide; she refuses, in resentment for him being so absent from her life. Gustav then goes another direction by casting American actor Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), yet that creates new problems (for more check the link noted just above). … Value opened in domestic theaters (U.S.-Canada) on November 7, 2025 after debuting at some festivals (won the 2nd-highest honor [after the Palme d’Or], the Grand Prix, at the 2025 Cannes Film Festiva), spread only to 334 venues, still playing in 60 of them (made $4.53 million so far, $16 million worldwide) but is easily available in streaming where it rents for $14.99 from both Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV, something the CCAL enthusiastically encourages you to do with 97% positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, 86% Metacritic average score. A big wow!
Further, at the 2026 Golden Globes it was nominated for Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Motion Picture - Non-English Language, Best Director - Motion Picture, Best Screenplay - Motion Picture (Eskil Vogt, Trier), Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama (Reinsve), Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture (Fanning and Lilleaas), won Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture (Skarsgård)—though I don’t see his role as “Supporting” although a tough choice for the Globe voters anyway given his competition (you'll have to scroll down a long way to find his category in this link)—and now it’s Norway’s contender to make the finalists for Oscar’s Best International Film. Then, you may ask, why only 3½ stars from me? I’ll start by citing Tom Shone from London’s The Times (MC score 100%, along with many others in their 80-100% range): "It’s a little like one of those Allen movies from the mid-Eighties such as Hannah and Her Sisters, which performs the magic trick of making one family’s secrets, lies, silences and memories feel like your own." Well, I remember Hannah ... (Woody Allen, 1986; won Oscars for Best Original Screenplay [Allen], Best Supporting Actor/Actress [Michael Caine, Dianne Wiest]) which has stayed with me much better over all these 40 years than Sentimental Value did for even 40 minutes after I was done watching it so even though I see the comparison, sense … Value as Bergman-lite, I just wasn’t all that taken in by this Norwegian film. For curiosity I read another Times critic, Ed Potton, who’s more in agreement with me (60% MC score): “Skarsgard and Reinsve are excellent [I agree] as two damaged people who are only able to open up when they’re working, but you yearn for the film itself to open up. It’s an intriguing premise, stylishly executed but sometimes lacking a bit of heart.” I don’t think you’d come away disappointed if you watched … Value, but maybe I was just expecting too much so keep your assumptions in check, see where this story might take you. On the other hand, I hope my choice for this review’s Musical Metaphor is as successful for you as it is for me, Judy Collins’ "My Father" (on her 1968 Who Knows Where the Time Goes? album) where she presents a somewhat-fictional account of her father (but a true tribute to him)—“I stayed behind the youngest still / Only danced alone / The colors of my father’s dreams / Faded without a sound […] I sail my memories of home / Like boats across the Seine / And watch the Paris sun / Set in my father’s eyes again”—speaking to me of the problems and connections that will evolve between Gustav and Nora.
SHORT TAKES
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