The Worst Person in the World

Julie (Reinsve, who won the Best Actress award at Cannes last year for her portrayal of this character) is a Norwegian woman nearing 30 years of age. She is the heart of this coming-of-age film, a type of film generally attached to teenagers and other kids on the cusp of grownup understanding. Julie, of course, is no child, any more than she is the worst person in the world (a phrase that gives a hint as to the film’s tongue-in-cheek humor), but she is a young person in search of the key that will unlock the entrance to her adult life. In the film’s opening scenes, we observe as Julie switches professional career paths with the same frequency she changes her hair color. Eventually, she takes a temporary job at a bookstore, which, ironically, becomes one of the constants in her life. Julie is one of those people for whom life happens while she is busy making other plans.

Other areas of vacillating emotions include Julie’s romantic desires, her feelings about motherhood, and her relationships with her birth family. Early in the film, she moves in with Aksel (Danielsen Lie, who also had lead roles in the other two movies considered to be part of Trier’s Oslo trilogy: Oslo, August 31st and Reprise). Aksel is an esteemed underground cartoonist who is several years older than she. Although he is deeply in love with her, he warns Julie at the outset that because they are at different stages of their lives, that reality is bound to become a source of friction later in their relationship. Due to her youthful inexperience, Julie discounts the threat, but, sure enough, she eventually leaves Aksel for barista Eivind (Nordrum), who, like Julie, desires no children. Yet if this is where we expect Julie’s perambulation through life to come to rest, we would be mistaken.

Structured in 12 chapters along with a prologue and epilogue, The Worst Person in the World was written especially for Reinsve by writer/director Joachim Trier (with his longtime collaborator and co-scriptwriter Eskil Vogt). Julie’s restlessness is anchored by a self-confidence that Reinsve conveys guilelessly and brilliantly. Several great set-pieces (a dance scene, a magic mushrooms episode, a within-the-social-limits flirtation with a stranger at a party she crashes, and an amazing Run Lola Run-reminiscent sequence in which Julie races across town while everyone around her remains motionlessly in place) help define the character. An unexpected and touching third-act denouement furthers Julie’s emotional growth and quells her gyroscopic sense of direction.

The Worst Person in the World is nominated for Oscars in the Best International Feature and Best Original Screenplay categories, although the exclusion of Renate Reinsve as a Best Actress nominee is a glaring oversight. Like Julie, however, this film does not depend on outside validation to prove its worth. In the end, we learn enough about Julie to see that she is much like us, yet never enough to be fully known. Life will always be a relentless process of becoming.