Joachim Trier ‘Sentimental Value’ Earns Raves at Cannes Fest (Competition)
Charli xcx first declared “Joachim Trier Summer” at Coachella, and now Elle Fanning, one of his new film’s stars is continuing
Fanning rocked a white T-shirt bearing the phrase to the Cannes presser for the film, which earned the longest standing ovation of the competition so far on Wednesday night with rapturous response.
The lengthy reception has the festival buzzing about the film as potential frontrunner for the Palme d’Or.
Fanning, 27, who grew up in the spotlight as a child star alongside her sister Dakota, also spoke about how her career has evolved over the years.
She plays Rachel Kemp, a Hollywood starlet who is offered a role in personal film from director Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgard) that he first offered to his daughter Nora (Renate Reinsve). Rachel then backs out of the project after getting mixed up in their family drama.
“I have definitely grown in my autonomy and speaking up through the years in this business.”
“Once I read the script I was completely floored. You do not come by scripts that are so moving or nuanced. I read it so quickly. If I read something really fast that means I’m really excited.”
“We had so many in-depth conversations about who we wanted Rachel to be,” she continued. “This whole experience, the environment he creates is such a safe space to just be open and he is looking at you and seeing you and getting things out of you that you didn’t even know were inside of yourself.”
Trier also spoke about the emotion that is portrayed in the film, saying that he was initially “a little bit shy” to tackle it because he and co-writer Eskil Vogt come from a “punk background.”
“We were counter-culture and we didn’t want to make sobby movies,” he said. “But we realized through the films we’ve made that we’ve grown older and the world is a tough place, and maybe we need to be vulnerable and show characters that are vulnerable. So we kind of came to the conclusion that tenderness is the new punk. For me, it is. It’s what I need right now — I need to believe that we can see the other, that there is a sense of reconciliation, that polarization and machismo isn’t the only way forward.”
