This September-2025 drama was directed (and co-written) by Joachim Trier. It is about two sisters, Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), who confront potential reconciliation with their estranged father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), an aging movie director wondering whether he’s too old to produce another excellent movie. Both sisters were deeply wounded when, after making an award-winning picture 15 years earlier, Gustav ran away to Sweden, his marriage in tatters. That abandonment is still raw in both daughters. The anger shows up in Nora, a stage actress but clearly psychologically wounded, as seething hateful rejection and in Agnes, well-adjusted, married, and with a delightful son, as an explosive confrontation late in the movie. 

The movie asks us to confront three main questions. Is it ever too late in life to reconcile? Must reconciliation be direct, or can it somehow happen without verbal processing? Does a person need a reconciled family and safe home to be fulfilled? I posed these questions to invite you to make a general conclusion, like the psychological scientist I am. But I’m also a licensed couple therapist and psychotherapist, and therapy seeks individual human-centered unique answers to specific dilemmas, which the film provides masterfully. If you see this film, you’ll want to wrestle with both the specific and general answers.

I watched this with my oldest daughter, a licensed counselor. I only cried twice (both times good tears), but then I was watching on a laptop where I could relieve the drama by trips to the kitchen for tea and to the bathroom. At its screening at Cannes in May 2025, where it competed for the Palme d’Or, it received a 19-minute standing ovation. The film generated great discussion with both my daughter and wife. If I had any criticisms, they were just that the English subtitles for the 80 percent of the movie in Norwegian sped by a bit too quickly for my aging reflexes and (being a USA person) I thought some dramatic pauses seemed a bit too protracted. I’m pleased to have seen it. If you want a thought- and discussion-provoking evening, this would provide an excellent stimulus.

– Everett Worthington, Jr., Ph.D., Commonwealth Professor Emeritus affiliated with the Department of Psychology, College of Humanities and Sciences

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