The Worst Person in the World

Halfway through The Worst Person in the World, Julie (the mesmerising Renate Reinsve) freezes time, taking the opportunity to run through the streets of Oslo while every other citizen stands motionless around her. It’s a magical scene, and particularly liberating for Julie, who finally manages to exert some control over her life in this brief fantasy, before the film returns to the sticky reality of how the years can slip by while you try to figure out who you are.

In a brief montage of historical photographs, Joachim Trier reminds us that Julie has more freedom of choice than the women she hailed from ever did, but that also makes it easier to feel unmoored. We see Julie try her hand at multiple career paths in the energetic prologue, and that sense of uncertainty never goes away as she vacillates between relationships in the subsequent twelve chapters.

Building the narrative through these snapshots is a perfect template for Trier and his co-writer Eskil Vogt, who are so adept at creating standout moments. These moments can be wild – as in an eccentric drug trip – or intimate, such as the night-long flirtation between Julie and Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), which never quite crosses over into cheating.

While Trier’s film is frequently dynamic and funny, a wistfulness emerges in the second half as the characters contemplate lost time and missed chances, with Anders Danielsen Lie’s prickly performance as Julie’s boyfriend Aksel becoming deeply moving here. Neither Julie, Aksel or Eivind deserve the sobriquet The Worst Person in the World; they’re just people trying to muddle through life as best they can, and this empathetic film allows us to see them in all their flawed humanity.

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Released in cinemas 25 Mar by MUBI, streaming from 13 May; certificate 15

For more on The Worst Person in the World, listen to the latest episode of The Cineskinny podcast wherever you get your podcasts, or scroll on to read our interview with its star, Renate Reinsve