Young Critics Review: The Worst Person in the World

The Worst Person in the World - still
Review 23 Oct 2021
During the Young Critics Workshop (12 – 23 October 2021) at Film Fest Ghent, five aspiring film critics (ages between 18 and 26) from Belgium and from abroad write reviews and essays on our festival films.

Growing Out Your Bangs with Joachim Trier

Here’s a recipe: take two conventionally attractive people (add a third to spice it up a bit), craft a charming depiction of their fateful first encounter, have them drink chilled chardonnay at a few summer parties, place their desirable bodies in the company of equally desirable interior design, a charming mix of Bauhaus era collector’s pieces, IKEA shelves and crinkled linen. Then let their blossoming relationship run into a few obstacles, but make sure they grow in the process of overcoming them. End with a kiss or, if this is a European production, a few silent tears, accompanied by the newly acquired wisdom that life, while full of melancholy, is ultimately as beautiful and fragile as the two hours of film you’ve just created.

Joachim Trier’s newest feature film The Worst Person in the World, the final part of his ‘Oslo Trilogy’, follows this rom-com formula to the letter: Julie (Renate Reinsve) is in her late twenties and slightly adrift after failing to complete two degrees. She falls in love with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), a successful comic book author who is a few years older than her and begins to build a life with him. Just as the going gets a little tougher, Julie spends a whirlwind night of “not cheating” with Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), who shares her subdued daddy issues and cares about recycling (he’s a Millennial!). Along with the hairstyles of its female lead, the story grows a little more complicated from here, prompting viewers to contemplate the nature of fate and which of these two heartthrobs Julie is supposed to end up with. Spoiler alert: in a twist that offers about as many insights into the causes of feminism as the excerpts from Julie’s first published article on ‘Oral Sex in the Age of #metoo’, it’s actually neither of them!

The Worst Person in the World is neither a subversion of genre conventions nor, perhaps for fear of kitsch, a wholehearted embrace of them. For once, the lack of pathos, slightly cheesy soundtrack and scenes of gratifyingly romantic grandeur actually work to the detriment of a film. A rom-com then is perhaps like love: best embraced unabashedly.


Luise Portrait

Luise Mörke

Luise Mörke

I’m a writer and graduate student of art history, currently based in Berlin.

Cinephiliac Moment

My choice for a cinephiliac moment has to be the following scene in Barbara Loden’s Wanda (1970), which was very important for me when I first started writing about film: After a loveless one-night stand, Wanda is abandoned in a parking lot by the man who was supposed to give her a ride. Alone and adrift once again, she buys a cone of soft serve at a roadside snack stall. She looks around, at nothing in particular, and seems to have lost all appetite for the small, immaculate swirl of sugar and cream that promises a moment of happy indulgence. The line between being lost and unlost is thin, and no movie has made me think about that in the way that Wanda has.

Top three anticipated FFG Films

  1. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria

  2. Alexander Voulgaris’s Winona

  3. and The First 54 Years by Avi Mograbi