The Worst Person in the World
“The Worst Person in the World” is a coming-of-age story sewn together with truth and discovery, each segment performing a complete act.
There's a restlessness that accompanies us along the journey from our 20s into our 30s. Childhood fades away, and adulthood arrives with a duty to discover our purpose and forge a forever love.
Driven by an urgency to become a complete person, we end relationships and begin new ones, all while questioning when the turning point will come. The exhausting turnover of self-discovery leaves us craving a chance to break free from it all.
“The Worst Person in the World” is a coming-of-age story sewn together with truth and discovery against the luminous Nordic skies. The story unfolds neatly within a dozen chapters between a prologue and epilogue, each segment performing a complete act.
We meet Julie (Renate Reinsve) in her college days, stuck in a revolving door of indecisiveness between careers and short-lived romances. At times she wrestles with an estranged relationship with her father. She feels like a supporting character in her own story, stuck in an endless cycle of beginnings and conclusions.
Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie) is Julie's reliable boyfriend and more than 10 years her senior. He's patient with her as the pressures of potential motherhood loom on the horizon. She approaches 30 and concedes that she isn't ready for the commitment he longs for and leaves.
The best scenes are between Julie and Aksel as they struggle to communicate their feelings and reflect on the artifacts of their youth. In one quiet moment, he confesses to her, "I wasted so much time worrying about what could go wrong; but what did go wrong was never the things I worried about."
Reinsve's brilliant performance of Julie earned her the award for Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival. She plays her range like an experienced musician, humble in the film's more emotional scenes, brazen in moments of her character's self-discovery.
Director and writer Joachim Trier paints his characters into the beauty and comfort of the Norwegian landscape of Oslo. Shadows of his affection for its people and their customs frame my favorite scene where Julie daydreams of making time stand still and travels to Oslo to kiss Eivind (Herbert Nordrum). The event captures the romance and mischief that makes this film worthy of a spot on your watchlist.
Nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film, “The Worst Person in the World” shows us that there's no exact point where life is supposed to start for good. In time, the expectations that fell through don't matter as much as we thought they did.