Sentimental Value - Film of the Year 2025

 

It was my last film of the year. The 27th December at Cineworld in Hemel Hempstead. No sign of it showing at my local Odeon over the Christmas holidays. Sentimental Value is a Norwegian movie from director Joachim Trier. I loved his previous film The Worst Person in the World, and it's lead actress Renate Reinsve is here again. She plays Nora, the estranged daughter of Stellan Skarsgard's Gustav Borg, a famous film director now aging and wanting his actress daughter for his last film. She turns him down. He has returned to the family home which, as Molly Haskell describes in the Winter Edition of Sight and Sound magazine, is "a character in it's own right".

Sophie Monks Kaufman in the same publication says that Stellan "gives the performance of his life" with the "agony of the man at the end of his own career".  Although I had to disagree when she says he's so different "prancing on a sun drenched beach". He was drunk again.  But this does not hide the fact that he is a horrible person. What kind of man is he who cannot watch other people's films? He makes anyone he meets feel like they are the most important person he has ever met, before discarding them for the next. But I have not seen better from an actor in 2025. An Oscar awaits. There is a scene with his other daughter Agnes ( a subtle performance from Inga Ibsdotter Lilleas) is so predictable it makes you angry. Fortunately she is not taken in. 

When her father moved to Sweden for good when they were children, it was Inga who helped her sister so much and the two remain close. And it's actually Nora who carries the movie (also an awards contender). Then there is Rachel Kemp played by Elle Fanning, an important and successful actress that Gustav decides to cast in the role he had planned for Nora.

When I thought that the ending was going to be set in the house that has been in the family for generations, as the director had planned, we finally find it was a film set. (Molly Haskell mistakenly told us it was their "house as both home and sound stage"). But after filming the very last scene of his movie, it's Stellan's reaction to his daughter's performance that says everything about his life and regret about those missing years. But can he change?

The film has already won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival (the winner of the Palme d'Or was political and one I will avoid). It has also won the best international independent film at the British Independent Film Awards and lots at other minor festivals. Awaiting the Golden Globes later in January and then the Oscars.

There is one interesting article on Kodak's Motion Picture Website about how "DP Kasper Tuxen DFF harnessed Kodak Film" as the cinematographer had for The Worst Person in the World. Both films were shot on 35mm film, unlike the modern use of digital film.

My Shakespeare by Greg Doran - Parts 25 to 27

 

25   Henry IV, Part 2

-2014: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon; Barbican Theatre, London; and tour to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong; Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), New York.

-Filmed, broadcast live and available on DVD, as part of Live from Stratford-upon-Avon.

Greg starts by asking whether Shakespeare started off to write two plays about Henry IV, or was the first such a success he had to write a sequel. ( Not the last to do this). Some people even prefer Part 2 to the first, but as Greg tells us "It is certainly in my experience a much harder play to do". We then get some background to how it came to be written, including references to The Famous Victories of Henry V that included parts about Prince Hal. 

It is then on to a scene that includes Falstaff and Mrs Quickly as well as Prince Hal and Poins. Followed by talking about Pistol. Greg just seems to be describing the play rather than his usual personal account. But his description of the scene for the potential recruits for the army is so well written. All those comic idiots, especially the brave, or foolhardy, Feeble.

Better is the death scene of Henry IV and that "remorseful apology" from his son that results in a wonderful reconciliation. But why then did Shakespeare immediately change to Gloucestershire and those reprobates Falstaff and Bardolf who know nothing about what has just happened. Greg cuts it from the play! But he doesn't tamper with the scene when Falstaff returns to London to congratulate his old friend, only to be rejected by the new king and that very public humiliation. Henry tells him "Presume not that I am the thing I was" and banishes Falstaff. It all ends with the arrival of the Lord Chief Justice to arrest him and cart him off to the Fleet prison. 

Anthony Sher's performance as Falstaff at BAM was described by the critic for the New York Times as "one of the greatest performances I have ever seen".

9th August 2000 at The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

26     Henry V

- 2015: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon; Barbican Theatre, London; King and Country Tour.

Broadcast to cinemas and released on DVD.

Greg takes to cast to Westminster Abbey to see the tomb of Henry V. He died at the early age of thirty five. Greg goes back to 1599 when Shakespeare is opening Henry V at the newly built Globe Theatre. At the same time, the Duke of Essex is mustering 16,000 troops to do battle in Ireland. The co-incidence is not lost on the audience. When Gregg introduces the start of Act 2, its the Chorus who says "Now all the youth of England are on fire". (Maybe not to go).

We are soon into the comedy of Pistol and Nym vying for the hand of Mrs Quickly. When we get to France it's the Chorus again letting us know the troops get "a little touch of Henry in the night". Although Henry in disguise is quarrelling with a few of them. Greg lets us know how many times the play was performed over the years when conflicts were actually taking place. 

He takes the production to China. The director of the Shanghai Arts Centre, Nick Yu, joins the company in rehearsals and wonders why such a big event in English history would make any sense to a Chinese audience. At the end he finds this was a play "about war, what it feels like, and what it costs. It's not a piece of propaganda".

12th September 2000 at The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

27   King Lear

- 2016 and revived 2018: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon; Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York.

Broadcast to cinemas and released on DVD

A special play for me as this was for my A Level at school. We were taken to London to see Paul Schofield as Lear. Greg talks about how he could not face the play for years as it was too close to home. He explains all about his father's dementia. (That he always wore a tie, as did my father, not only for work. I haven't worn one since the day I finished work nineteen years ago). Greg tells us he could never watch the play, even when performed at Stratford. His father died in 2010 at the age of ninety. 

Come 2013, and Greg talks to Tony about him taking on the lead role for a staging of Lear in 2016. (Tony had played The Fool twice, so knew it well). There is a great piece about presenting Lear's entrance at the start. Greg also describes why they include the mock trial from the first edition of the play that is not in the First Folio (1623 version). There is a wonderful description of Graham Turner's Fool as "dangerous radical alternative comedy". The set is also quite something, designed by Nick Turner.

I cannot remember the scene, described by Greg, when "two men walk on to a bare stage, one of them falls flat on his face, and then they both stand up, and start to walk off again. It's surely one of the finest scenes ever written". 

When the production went to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in 2018, it's there that Greg finally understands why Shakespeare changed his own happy ending to one of tragedy, one that early audiences rejected and had to be changed to pacify them. Then only Nahum Tate's 1681 revision was acceptable with that happy ending when Lear and Cordelia are happily reconciled. Greg said that he had ignored Shakespeare's instruction to "make the audience feel it's all going to end well". Before "bringing the play to it's tragic conclusion".

8th December 2007 at The New London Theatre

1963 at the Aldwych Theatre, London

We're still here

 

Last week I thought the swans and cygnets had moved on. Twice passing Weston Turville Reservoir I could not see any sign they were still there. However, yesterday here they were. All five cygnets (now almost fully grown but still with remnants of their brown feathers) and the two parents. What was incredible was the three in the photo above flying circuits of the reservoir before I had time to find my camera. And then disappearing into the reeds. Below is one of the other five trying to catch up.

Review of 2025

 

I usually start each year's review with pictures from the garden. The one above was taken in June and is now my screen saver. Below are just a few of the roses that did so well this year including the "Blue for You" that seems to get better every year,

The long dry spell in July and August meant all the lawns were in a sorry state. And the tall silver birch was losing it's leaves far too early.

But with welcome rain in September, and the Pro Kleen Grass Green fertilizer, the lawn quickly revived.

The Dahlias in the bedding border were yet another success. Almost at their best in October.

Back in February and March, the daffodils in that same border come up year after year.

It took me a while to find out the name of these bulbs I planted in pots. Tulip Flamin Hot. 

Our holiday in June was cancelled when I developed hives and missed my nephew's wedding. We did rebook for three days in Harrogate in September. Probably our best day included brunch at Betty's in York followed by a guided tour of the Minster.

We were back in Chichester, this time in October as the bungalow was fully booked in September. But we were very lucky with the weather as the blue sky on our circular  tour of the Roman walls shows.

And our day in Portsmouth was equally sunny.

Unlike our day in Oxford in December when the rain curtailed our exploration of their Roman walls. However, we did have a great day in London on our visit to the Wigmore Hall for a lunchtime piano recital.

Some other days out included Ashridge Open Gardens. I have also been keeping an eye on the cygnets at Weston Turville Reservoir ever since they were tiny. All five survived.

Now they are almost fully grown. Here they are in November.

I made a few visits to the theatre this year: Much Ado About Nothing at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Pride and Prejudice, Sort Of at Oxford Playhouse, La Traviata at Waterside Theatre, Aylesbury, The Constant Wife at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and Emma, also at Oxford.

My favourite film of the year was going to be One Battle After Another, that is until last week I saw Sentimental Value. (Deserved winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and lots of Oscar nominations). My review still to come, although there are two long reviews in this month's Sight and Sound Magazine. Another year's subscription was a Christmas present. As for books, I am over half way through Greg Doran's My Shakespeare which is an incredible book. For my favourite novel, it has to be Sally Rooney's Intermezzo. 

I started this blog nineteen years ago the month I retired. Where has all that time gone? Well, it's all documented here. 

Long Island, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and A Tidy Ending

 

We first met Eilis in Colm Toibin's "Brooklyn" (see my review). Now she is long gone from Ireland, married into a big family and with two teenage children. But it's when she discovers her husband Tony has fathered another child, and the mother's husband is determined to leave it with Eilish that she high tails it back to her homeland. Here she finds Jim who she almost married before going off to New York. He now own a prosperous pub.

But Jim has a secret relationship with Nancy who runs a fish and chip shop, and they are planning to marry once her daughter has tied the knot. Of course Eilis' feelings for Jim are resurrected, especially as her American husband has spoilt their marriage. And Jim is even more infatuated. So we have the classic torn between two lovers situation. How the novel is resolved involves a point in the plot that is almost too spurious. But the surprising ending was OK. Just. It leaves it open for a third book in a trilogy.

I have always been a big fan of Muriel Spark having read sixteen of her novels. I had somehow managed to avoid what is, perhaps, her most famous book The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. I guess the film with Maggie Smith was too familiar. I may be in the minority, but I felt this was the least worthy of any of her books.

We are introduced to the five girls who, at their posh Edinburgh school (The Marcia Blaine School for Girls) make up the Brodie Set. Only now that they have reached sixteen, they have long ago lost Brodie as their teacher. She now teaches a a younger class but keeps up with those of her years ago set when they were ten. But in those days they did not have formal lessons, only listening to a string of anecdotes. (I sort of remember a teacher who we could sidetrack from the curriculum).

Back in 1931, Sandy and Jenny at ten are best friends, have great fun discussing their teachers and cannot stop laughing. They have Jean Brodie spelling out her ideas about their education. "Art is greater than science. Art comes first and then science". In their last year with Miss Brodie, they will not be "taught" anything, just things about her experiences. The head is not impressed. She wants Brodie out, wanting her to apply for a post at a more progressive school.

Later on there are some vague parts about Jean's affairs, but more and more I became exasperated by the idiosyncratic prose, and how "prime" is repeated time and time again. The book is said to be "sublimely funny", but I just found it boring. We have glimpses of the future lives of the girls, but I wanted more. There is also the introduction of a new girl very late on. She's from a rich family and has been removed from many schools. She sounded interesting and I wanted more than the odd paragraph.

This was a disappointing story after having enjoyed two other novels by this author. A kind of murder mystery narrated by Linda near to who's house the bodies are found. You are pretty sure that Linda is one of those unreliable narrators, there is definitely something strange about her. When there are only two other people in her train carriage, why do they move away?

Linda tells us of events in her younger life, and then more recent times including her marriage to Terry. I say recent, but the story is punctuated by very short sections entitled NOW. She seems to be in some sort of care home. But we never know why. In that earlier time, Linda seems obsessed with a woman who seems to have lived in the house before her, Rebecca Finch, and who she finally tracks down. From here, the book becomes more and more strange, as with Linda's spending out of control and her relationship with Rebecca taking a ridiculous turn, we wonder what is happening. Until we reach that totally bonkers conclusion.

Sight and Sound Magazine - Winter 2025/26

 

Editorial 

In his review of the year, Mike Williams started with David Lynch and Tilly Norwood. I skipped all this repetitive stuff. And I cannot believe that KPop Demon Hunters is Netflix's most watched film of all time. Among the films he mentions are Mickey 17, M I The Final Reckoning and House of Dynamite (Netflix again). And back to David Lynch. But this feels all too lazy.

Opening Scenes

Oh good, this is all about films to look out for in 2026 courtesy of Thomas Flew. Blockbusters include Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, only in IMAX, Dune Part 3, and "an exhausting list of sequels". Martin Scorsese's What Happened at Night stars Leonardo Di Caprio and Jennifer Lawrence. From the UK comes Emerald Fennel's Wuthering Heights with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, another  Sense and Sensibility, Daisy Edgar Jones in Bab Bridget and Danny Boyle's Ink. 

European films include Ruben Ostland's The Entertainment System is Down and Pedro Almodóvar's Bitter Christmas. From Asia there will be new films from Asghar Fahradi and Hamaguchi Ryusuke. Horror will be represented by Jessie Buckley in The Bride and Robert Egger's Werewulf. 

Nothing noteworthy in Editor's Choice or In Conversation

The Score

Sam Davies talks to punk band Idles front man Joe Talbot about their music for the forthcoming Darren Aronofsky's film Caught Stealing.

Reader's Letters

They all just seem to be people showing off their Knowledge of cinema.

The Long Take

Pamela Hutchinson talks about all the extras who were cast as the "jostling neighbours" to Jessie Buckley's Agnes Hathaway at The Globe theatre in the new film Hamnet. Pamela thinks they are "the film's final casting triumph" and that Jessie's "fellow groundlings leap off the screen". Agnes goes to the Globe to see her husband's new play Hamlet and Pamela talks about "the solidarity of shared sorrow" in the link between her own loss and that in the play. Apparently the audience at the screening Pamela attended "were floored by the moment". 

Flick Lit

Nicole Flattery thinks that Lurker is one of her favourite films of the year. It's about "the hollowness of fame and the lengths some people will go to feel a fraction of notoriety". Director Alex Russell sets the film in LA where everyone wants the same thing. Nicole talks about the city's evolution, and the LA writers Joan Didion and Eve Babitz.

In Memoriam

Obituaries of those who died in 2025, starting with a full page on Terence Stamp. Of the huge number of actors who each get a small paragraph, here are Claudia Cardinale, Richard Chamberlain, Pauline Collins, Marianne Faithful, Gene Hackman, Diane Keaton, Val Kilmer, Diane Ladd., Michael Madsen, Jean Marsh, Joan Plowright, Robert Redford, Patricia Routledge and Prunella Scales.

There are lists of those from animation, cinematographers, composers and musicians. Then many, many directors including David Lynch, but also editors, make up artists, producers, executives, screenwriters, set and costume designers, sound and special effects and others. A double page spread on Phyllis Dalton and her costumes for some iconic roles for which we see some of her lovely sketches. 

2025: Films of the Year

I'm not sure why a number of the films here have not even been released! Some even "awaiting UK distribution". Some straight to streaming! Many more are set for release here later in the year (even as late as April) so 2026! Of the fifty films here, I have seen six! At number 48 is Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme, at 20 is Blue Moon and at 18 The Ice Tower. At 15 is Park Chan-Wook's No Other Choice due on 23rd January and at 11 is Sentimental Value from director Joachim Trier at the end of this month somewhere. Molly Haskell says that after his brilliant The Worst Person in the World, Renate Reinsue plays another "unsympathetic part". Molly has two pages to tell us where "women can behave as badly as men, even worse". As for Renate, "she bears the weight of an impenetrable melancholy". 

Somehow I missed Sinners at No 2, maybe it did not have a mainstream cinema release? At number one is One Battle After Another that Michael Koresky called a worthy winner. "It crashes over viewers like a series of waves".

Film and TV

When four of the first ten or either Netflix, Apple or Disney and another on Channel 4, I skipped past. And two are on iPlayer. 

Discs of the Year

None

Books of the Year

If I had to choose one it might be Suddenly Something Clicked: The Languages of Film Editing and Sound Design by Walter Murch, a key figure in some big movies.

Lucile Hadzihalilovic

The director of The Ice Tower is interviewed by Peter Strickland. Eight pages including some great stills from the film. There is an interesting section about the casting of Clara Pacini as Jeanne as she was playing younger than her twenty one years. Also a nice piece about Marion Cotillard. Lucile talks about her style of working, "In our films, we have an approach of the visuals and the soundtrack being somehow more important then the plot". I nearly always like a film or tv series about the making of a film. See my post on Irma Vep. I was very glad I saw the film before reading the article.

Capital Punishment

Arjun Sajip discusses the new film No Other Choice from Oldboy director Park Chan-wook. (See my reviews of his films Stoker, Thirst and Decision to Leave). His new film is "a pitch black comedy" adapted from the novel by Donald Westlake. A kind of family drama with robots? Opens on 23rd January, hopefully somewhere near.

 I Need Time For Dreamwork

Sophia Satchell-Baeza talks to Hamnet director Chloe Zhao, and especially about the ending, true to Maggie O'Farrell's book and now quite famous. And how when Zhao listened to a track sent by lead actress Jessie Buckley she "imagined a new and very different finale". The director had previously won the Oscar for best director and best film for Nomadland. (See my review). She describes Hamnet as "a dark fairy tale" and "grounded in a quiet, fought for, domesticity". The article brings in Paul Mescal (Will) and Jessie Buckley (Agnes) and their rehearsal confrontation. 

A Band Apart

I just want to start with the title of this section because for the life of me, having searched and searched, I cannot find any relevance to this article. The main relevance to "A Band Apart" is the production company that included Quinten Tarantino. Here Jonathon Romney introduces and interviews director Richard Linklater about his new film Nouvelle Vague. This is an affectionate retelling of the making of Jean-Luc Goddard's A bout de souffle or Breathless (1960). That film was made through low budget, guerilla film making, handheld cameras, natural light and on location filming in Paris without permits and the use of improvised dialogue that was dubbed later. A twenty three day shoot and part of the French New Wave. Linklater then goes on to describe nine individuals and film extracts associated with the French New Wave and that old film. It's on the internet if anyone is interested.

Edgar Wright in Conversation with Stephen King

This is all because the former has directed another film adaptation of the latter's novel The Running Man. There is a long discussion between Edgar Wright and Stephen King. We hear how the book came about and how it was first published in 1982 but written a decade earlier. A little about the original film staring Arnold Swartzenegger. However, the introduction is by James Mottram so what follows is a three way conversation with the other two. Apparently the book is not just about The Running Man but includes other game shows. 

REVIEWS: Films

Nouvelle Vague

Henry K Miller has done a great job to describe the background, outlie the plot and introduce multiple characters in this docudrama about the making of the Jean-Luc Goddard's 1960 film A bout de souffle. (See A Band Apart above). "What comes across is a sense of community, with a strong element of of social contact that one doubts is characteristic of many professional film making milieux today". But thank goodness director Richard Linklater "is not unduly reverent towards Goddard". Miller thought it was quite sensible to choose A bout de souffle as this was shot in only twenty days. 

With his other film this year Blue Moon, Linklater has set both "in a more aesthetically pleasing past". Miller has given us a very long review, far more than we would see in the press. It opens here on 30th January so will certainly look out for it in the cinema. There is also separately, a Q & A with Richard Linklater courtesy of Ian Haydn Smith.

Hamnet

The review is preceded by a still from the movie, taken from the stage of the Globe Theatre, back in the 16th century, looking out at the audience of William Shakespeare's Hamlet. In the front row is Agnes, his wife, about to burst into tears. It's Nicolas Rapolo who reviews what sounds like a wonderful film. If it's anything like Maggie O'Farrell's book, it will be. She has written the screenplay along with director Chloe Zhao. The film (as did the play at Stratford) goes back to the early days of their relationship and here it is certainly a character study. We see the early days of their family as the children start to grow up. But it's the trauma of losing one of the twins that tears the marriage apart. Agnes (superbly played by Jessie Buckley) hurts so much, especially as Will takes himself off to London and the beginnings of his career. But its her experience at The Globe that is a magical, powerful climax.

Saipan

You might be forgiven for skipping the review of a film with the title of which you may never have heard. Except it was the base of the Ireland football team on the eve of the 2002 world cup in South Korea and Japan. And that notorious falling out between manager Mick McCarthy (played by Steve Coogan no less) and captain Roy Keane. Philip Concannon says "it's very entertaining, but after the climatic stand-off, the film's intensity dissipates". So not a good review. Maybe wait for it on TV.

Sentimental Value

Sophie Monks Kaufman says this is Joachim Trier's follow up to his brilliant film The Worst Person in the World. (See my review). The cast is led by Stellan Skarsgard ("giving the performance of his life " as a film director who wants his estranged daughter and talented actress (played by Renate Reinsve who also starred in that previous movie "her luminous breakout performance") for his next film.  She turns him down.  Sophie calls it "this gorgeous, generous meditation about inherited familial suffering". Sounds great. On at Cineworld now.

No Other Choice

This is Park Chan-wook's "latest obsessional thriller" according to Nicolas Rapolo. It's an adaptation of Donald Westlake's crime story The Ax. Man-su seems to have had the perfect life until mass redundancies take hold. Hos wife Mi-ri takes a job in a dentists to save the family and puts the house up for sale. But it's all he husband's schemes that are central to the plot. Most sound a disaster. Release here due the end of January so must look out for it.

I skipped the next six reviews until I came to:

Is This Thing On?

Mark Asch discusses Bradley Cooper's third film as director. A separating couple (Will Arnett and Laura Dern) with the former at a low point in his life, trying stand up and only just avoiding complete failure. The origin story of British comedian John Bishop when his estranged wife attends a gig and they sort of reconcile. Not sure.

H is for Hawk

There was a reason I avoided the book but cannot remember what that was. It was the three leads in the film that got me interested (Claire Foy, Brendon Gleeson and Denise Gough) but that may not be enough to get me to see it. 

Lots of other reviews.

The Running Man

Kate Stables long review. (See my post). "A fast and furious Glen Powell". That's dead right. But thats was all he was, so repetitive. Although this was mainly positive review. Kate does conclude "that crammed and over-complicated last act" is "reworked into a convoluted finale". And that is being kind.

DVD and Blu-Ray

The Agatha Christie Collection. 

Kate Stables again reviews this box set of Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Death on the Nile (1978) and The Mirror Crack'd (1982). She tells us about the background to these three classics.

Wider Screen

The Pordenone Silent Film Festival

Books

None of interest.

From the Archive: Light of the Day

Sight and Sound Winter 1965/66

Raoul Coutard, apparently a famous cinematographer, talks about his art. How he started of as a photographer and then all about working with Jean-Luc Goddard when he made the move to films. All in the 1960's and in black and white. He tells us about the sets, the types of film stock and lighting. Then a piece on A bout de souffle and how this was a turning point in cinema history.

When he starts using colour film with Pierrot le Fou he explains how "the cameraman is most aware of the fact that no film stock is as sensitive as the human eye". Then the use of make up or non make up.

This month in ...... 2001

On the cover of that month's magazine is Ray Winstone in Sexy Beast. Inside that edition, Jonathon Glazer discusses this film. Reviews that month included Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Almost Famous from Cameron Crowe. Two very different movies, but both excellent. 

Swans and Cygnets at Weston Turville Reservoir - An Update

 

Following my post of the 14th December which included a photo from 24th November of the seven swans and cygnets on the bank next to the reservoir, I had noted that the parents were nowhere to be seen. I should not have worried as here they are today.

The five almost fully grown cygnets were scattered around the reservoir, but strangely they began to move together and ended up back with their parents over on the far side. Future updates to follow.