"In the opening scene of Joachim Trier's glorious new film Sentimental Value, the actress Nora Borg (Renate Reinsve) is preparing to go onstage for a performance at the National Theatre in Oslo. As the orchestra plays the thundering ancient melody of the Dies Irae (think the opening theme of The Shining), the young woman is struck by a case of stage fright so severe it soon becomes a full-on panic attack."
"This whole sequence of events plays out so exactly like an actor's worst nightmare that I was convinced it would end with a cut to the character waking up in a cold sweat. But no, this is real life for Nora, an accomplished artist who struggles with clinical depression and resists real romantic intimacy. She's a hot mess, but a charmingly relatable one, a combination of qualities that anyone who appreciated Reinsve's equally luminous performance in Trier's breakout film,"
Nora Borg, an actress at the National Theatre in Oslo, experiences a crippling panic attack during a performance as the orchestra plays the Dies Irae. She hides in her dressing room, rips at her costume and head mic, and requires crew intervention and guided breathing to attempt an entrance. She pressures a fellow cast member, Jakob, for sexual catharsis and even asks to be slapped when he refuses. After agonizing silence she finally speaks the play's first line. Nora is portrayed as an accomplished artist who struggles with clinical depression and resists romantic intimacy. The film shifts from intimate character study to a broader panorama of a multigenerational family centered on a house in Oslo.
Read at Slate Magazine
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