The film world might have given up on smart romantic comedies, but nobody seems to have told Norway’s Joachim Trier. The latest feature from the director of Oslo, August 31st and Thelma is a welcome new entry in that long-neglected genre – a sexy, witty and poignant comic drama with its thumb on the rhythms of modern love-lives, and its soul anchored in the best traditions of screen romance.
It’s a double Oscar nominee, in contention for Best International Feature and Best Original Screenplay at Sunday’s ceremony, while its 34-year-old star Renate Reinsve, previously not much known outside of Norway, deservedly won Best Actress at Cannes after its premiere there last July. Its comically downbeat title makes more sense in the original Norwegian. Verdens verste menneske is a phrase with a meaning similar to “mea culpa” or “my bad”: more self-deprecating aside than brutal moral judgement.
Reinsve plays Julie, a bright, restless Oslo woman navigating her late 20s without much sense of what might lie beyond them. She’s a medical student turned psychology student turned aspiring professional photographer – which is to say bookshop employee and owner of lots of expensive camera equipment, purchased with her student loan. Our first glimpse of her is a real catch-your-breath moment: she’s standing on a balcony overlooking the city at dusk, wearing a backless cocktail dress, smoking a cigarette and looking thoughtfully at – or perhaps for – something we can’t quite apprehend. A little later, the event is revealed to be a book launch party for her boyfriend Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), a comics artist trying to branch out into more serious work. In this context, he’s the protagonist, she the beautiful accessory. The film follows Julie’s search for a life in which she can be the unambiguous lead.
Trier and his regular co-writer Eskil Vogt divide the film into 12 chapters, and mere minutes into the second, her heart is coaxing her off course. At a wedding reception, she meets Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), a genial coffee shop employee with a vague air of the comedian Pete Davidson. The chemistry between the two is instantaneous and scorching, and they decide to be as intimate as possible with each other without being unfaithful – no kissing or fumbling, but lots of sharing secrets, nibbling elbows and smelling one another’s sweat.
It sounds revolting. In fact, it’s the most romantic scene in cinema so far this year – at least for a few minutes, until a still lovelier one arrives. Following this evening of transcendent steaminess, Julie begins to reassess her relationship with Aksel, which has settled into a comfortable rut. One morning, as he’s pouring her some coffee, she clicks the kitchen light-switch and time unaccountably stops, allowing her to run off and spend a perfect day with Eivind, in a city otherwise frozen in its tracks. The Worst Person in the World adores its characters, but it’s also head-over-heels for Oslo itself, in the same way so many American films swoon over New York.
Even when the initial heat of the central love triangle gives way to tragedy and thorny choices, the film’s teasing spirit and compassion persist. It’s a story of ordinary humans in all their muddled wonderfulness, and you can’t help but cheer for them at every contradictory turn.
15 cert, 128 mins. Dir: Joaquim Trier. In cinemas from Friday
