An ebullient, engrossing Norwegian film from co-writer Joachim Trier is serving of its recent Oscar nominations for Best International Feature and Original Screenplay.
The Worst Person in the World (fully subtitled) highlights the messiness in the life of Oslo’s Julie (an endearingly authentic Renate Reinsve) over four years until she reaches thirty observed in omniscient voice-over in a down chapters.
What she has in life isn’t nearly satisfying from creativity to romance; studying medicine begins to lean towards psychology, before an inking towards photography.
She’ll be drawn at first to comic book artist Aksel (Anders Danielson Lie) who prods her into an authorial calling; sparks later fly with climatologist Elvind (Herbert Nordrum) who’ll provide her with the eponymous moniker.
With illuminating vigor Trier and script partner Eskil Vogt known how to expound on why the characters are gnawing at. Key is how bracing Reinsve is in distinctively shading an identity crisis. The relationships are refreshing as Lie and Nordrum complement their delightful distaff counterpart with pointed realism, notably in conversation.
There’s a provocative quality to this examination of a far from idyllic existence, burrowing into the struggles to reach a certain maturity through ethical relativism with wry intelligence.
Subtleties from varying vantage points play an important part in the emotions that yield a not so clear, entropic coming-of-age, hardly heavy-handed feminine empowerment. Resonating all the more from individual vulnerability that Reinsve engages to naturally, letting Tier triumph with spry sensibility to make The Worst very attractive in a screwy world.