(Variously available via streaming, digital rental/purchase and in some theaters)
SENTIMENTAL VALUE
133 minutes; R; directed by Joachim Trier
Critic’s grade: A-
Nickel review: Hell is for children, Norwegian edition. Multigenerational trauma, illuminated via a master class in acting. Fully deserving of all those Oscar noms.
“Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way,” Pink Floyd noted in the song “Time,” from 1973’s “Dark Side of the Moon” album.
It’s the Norwegian way, too, apparently, according to the ennui-loaded silences alternating with emotion-charged outbursts in Joachim Trier‘s “Sentimental Value.”
The sometimes somber drama, however, is punctured with moments of levity and lightness, particularly in the exchanges between Nora (Renate Reinsve), a veteran stage actor, and her younger sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas).
The two, suffering from the recent loss of their mother, also struggle with the long shadow and psychological entanglements of their father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgard), a celebrated filmmaker who years ago apparently chose devotion to his career over his family.
Gustav has suddenly reappeared and asks Nora to star in a film — perhaps the last movie he will make — inspired in part by his mother, a Holocaust survivor who committed suicide when he was seven years old. And he wants to shoot the movie in the family home, where her death took place all those years ago. But it’s not about his mother, he insists.
Enter a popular young American actress, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), tapped to play the lead in Gustav’s film when Nora opts out of taking the role. Cue the churning of complex emotional currents in a slow-burning narrative that allows all four principals to demonstrate their considerable acting chops.
Trier nevertheless doesn’t quite dig deeply enough into how and why these long-standing domestic issues have impacted the long-absent father and his daughters, and the kind of story that Gustav wants to tell with his latest production.
Trier’s movie about moviemaking also makes use of a framing device, positioning the family home, a sprawling, majestic Victorian house, as a living thing, a nominally benevolent container that watches over and remembers the lives of those who inhabit the place over the decades.
The concept is introduced at the film’s start and largely downplayed until later, when we look through the window of an upstairs bedroom, at Gustav, down below. He’s seated outside at a table, perhaps pondering the trauma that he has created for his offspring and ultimately, the nature of his legacy, as a parent and as an artist.
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KOLN 75
115 minutes; NR; directed by Ido Fluk
Critic’s grade: B+
A dysfunctional father-daughter relationship also sets the stage for events in “Koln 75,” a quirky sort-of biopic about veteran German-born promoter Vera Brandes (Mala Emde), centering on the drama around a legendary concert by jazz pianist Keith Jarrett. The completely improvised performance, held in Cologne in 1975, resulted in “The Koln Concert,” a critically acclaimed double-LP release on ECM Records. It sold more than four million copies worldwide, becoming the most commercially successful solo piano and solo jazz album in history.
The film, from Israeli-born writer and director Ido Fluk (“The Ticket”) is ambitious, quirky and frequently funny, tapping into something of the freewheeling, anything-goes vibe of that particular time and place. It illuminates a chapter of music history that many have forgotten about, and some may not much care about, given its niche subject matter.
It also tends to trivialize the artistic and physical travails then (and later) experienced by the jazz giant, who stopped performing in public in 2018 following two strokes. Jarrett’s fascinating work and life offer plenty of grist for a compelling feature film examining his artistic achievements and impact, and personal story; this isn’t it, though.
Following an ill-fitting intro referencing the Sistine Chapel, located 700 miles from Cologne, Fluk’s film begins in earnest at Brandes’ 50th birthday celebration, during which her father unexpectedly shows up and gives the worst kind of party toast: “She is … my greatest disappointment,” he says. Then the filmmaker breaks the fourth wall, when her lead looks at the camera and says, “Let’s do this again” and flashes back in time.
Brandes, as a teenager, becomes an avid jazz fan, counting John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins among her favorites and finding much inspiration in the concerts at the festival once known as Berlin Jazz Days. To the chagrin of her severe, even physically abusive father, a financially successful dentist, she blows off academics and parlays her jazz fandom into a career as a concert promoter. Step one: She lies about her age to London saxophonist (and club owner) Ronnie Scott (Daniel Betts) and convinces him to let her book a tour.
The heart of the film is the immediate lead-up to the Koln concert, as Fluk alternates between the reluctance of Jarrett (John Magaro) to perform, in part due to back and gastrointestinal issues and a lack of sleep, and the efforts of Brandes to bring to life what seems like a near-impossible dream: A concert by Jarrett, alone at the piano, starting at 11:30 pm at the 1,400-seat Cologne Opera House, following an opera performance earlier that evening.
Does she have the resources to come up with the $10k that the hall requires in advance, and the ingenuity to choreograph all the moving parts? Can she find a suitable piano at the last minute? Will Jarrett show up? Will anyone buy tickets?
Along the way, a fictitious music critic played by Michael Chernus offers a short course in jazz history, from big band swing to small groups playing standards to Jarrett’s approach: “(He) is doing it every night, he is departing from jazz and playing pure music undefined by anything but the player, the moment and, of course,” the piano. Not a bad summary, as far as it goes.
All that sturm und drang over making the concert happen and then … the film, made without the cooperation of Jarrett or ECM, stops short. We see images of a crowd filling the venue, but we don’t hear a lick of the history-making music from that night. Instead, a pop tune blares over those scenes. Was that an artistic decision by the filmmaker or, as some have suggested, did she go that route because of an inability to get the rights to include the music on the soundtrack? Either way, it’s a disappointing conclusion.
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SPLITSVILLE
104 minutes; R; directed by Michael Angelo Covino
Critic’s grade: B
“Splitsville” is much ado about nothing. And yet … it’s wildly entertaining in moments, including multiple exhilarating, ridiculously extended over-the-top fight sequences that are more slapstick than serious.
Nobody dies from all the intense physical sparring, but only in the movies could these kinds of beatings of not-young bodies not be followed by weeks or months of hospitalization, therapy and maybe extended wheelchair time.
The seriocomic romance ultimately offers proof that love, contemporary style, can be deaf, dumb, blind, a little erotic and downright freaking exhausting.
Call it “Future Shock” (you know, the ubiquitous ‘70s book by futurist Alvin Toffler), romance edition: According to this narrative, the rules around modern relationships – making out, making it official, breaking up, making up, going round and round again on a carousel of love and lust – are changing so rapidly that participants are left dazed and confused.
Or something. Your interpretation of the story’s theme is as valid as mine, or the next guy’s or gal’s.
It all works as well as it does, in fits and starts, because the core four actors – Dakota Johnson, Adria Arjona, Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino – are so game for their roles, never holding anything back.
And because the script, co-written by director Covino and Marvin, who also created 2019’s similarly themed “The Climb,” is sharp, observant and often laugh-out-loud funny, intermingling raucous zaniness and rat-a-tat dialogue with moments of real human connection. Neat trick.
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THE ASTRONAUT
90 minutes; NR; directed by Jess Varley
Critic’s grade: C
File under:
- Sci-fi, horror
- Things ain’t what they seem
- A twist you can see coming from a mile away
- Not bad
- Not quite good
- Visually potent
- Waste of a provocative concept and reliable actors (Kate Mara, Laurence Fishburne)
- Monsters variously reminiscent of the “Jurassic Park” and “Alien” universes
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ELLA MCCAY
115 minutes; PG-13; directed by James L. Brooks
Critic’s grade: C-
Is the annoyingly inert “Ella McCay” actively awful or just harmlessly bland and hopelessly misguided?
Regardless of where it went wrong, the surprisingly clumsy and poorly directed dramedy from James L. Brooks, the director-writer-producer behind ‘80s notables “Terms of Endearment” and “Broadcast News” and ‘90s winners “I’ll Do Anything” and “As Good as It Gets,” is utterly forgettable.
That’s despite a cast of folks, including cute-as-a-button star Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis, Woody Harrelson and the great Albert Brooks, deserving of much better material. Brooks is 85.
It will be a shame if the subpar “Ella McCay” turns out to be his swan song.
Copyright 2026 by Philip Booth. All rights reserved.