Written by: Joachim Trier & Eskil Vogt / Directed by: Joachim Trier / Released in The UK by Mubi / 128 Minutes
19th April 2022
Review by Rob Deb
The Pitch: The chronicles of four years in the life of Julie, a young woman who navigates the troubled waters of her love life and struggles to find her career path, leading her to take a realistic look at who she really is.
While it may seem a tangential film in regard to the types of entertainment The Comic Crush normally covers, I feel this is worth some mention for the themes and aspects that would slip under the radar when left to the marketing. Ostensibly it is about Julie (played fantastically by Renate Reinsve) the lead, finding her way in the malaise and myriad of influences that seem to assault us all in our 20s on the journey to 30. She starts gifted and supported, brimming with both cultural capital (that is middle class, but also more European) and aptitude for her choice of studies. Initially, medicine, then the mind with psychology and finally photography, and, like others have before, finds her potential being reserved by her own indifference and chooses to work in a book shop with a certain listlessness that mesmerises yet pervades, and drifts her from that very potential.
JULIE CONTINUES TO FIGHT FOR HER OWN AGENCY AND RELEVANCE
The bulk of the film is centred around her relationship with an older man, Askell, and this is where the story seems to enjoy its moments of fantasy and pop culture. While it would be easy to reframe Julie as a manic pixie dream girl, it is Askell’s own desire to ground that is the biggest influence on Julie rather than the other way around. Askell is a comic book writer-artist of the semi-political Robert crumb vein, his own character ‘Bobcat’ being a play on Fritz the Cat. While Julie explores her own senses and expression, he looks to constantly define his own, claiming he is in the ‘next phase of his life’. His work gains mainstream acclaim with new ventures at one point, and he seems embarrassed by his own original fans as they turn up. Julie continues to fight for her own agency and personal relevance with encounters and writing, proving a great mirror to the pretension of her “artist” partner.
JULIE DRIFTS INTO QUARTER-LIFE FANTASIES
Later Bobcat IS bought and Ansell is utterly angered by the sanitisation of the character. He even goes so far as to claim ‘the starfish’, being the character’s anus, has been censored, thus removing the soul of the character. It is one of the most hilarious moments of pretension that then blends into fantastical animated sequences within Julie’s own mind. It is, in essence, the artist being an arse.
While this is occurring, we watch our lead be at once attracted to that passion, yet wanting to create her own work, she becomes a successful blogger to a degree about sex and starts to drift into quarter-life fantasies that involve sensual dares of “cheating, not cheating”. The film is a character study and while I suspect the conclusions are dated compared to many 20-somethings in these times (I’m 46 and shouting at kids often stems from forgetting what being in my 20’s would be like now) Sadly the ending lets it down by becoming more a polemic where the argument is “kids today have too much internet to form their own thoughts” with no retort.
SHE EXISTS IS WORLD WHERE SHE IS TARGETED BY MEN’S DEFINITIONS
The film would pass the Bechdel test if only our lead had any female friends to talk to about men. She exists in a world where she is targeted by men’s definitions but only towards the end do we see some sort of resolution of her own sense of self. I would say the film is interesting and very elegant, but it suffers from a lack of women when the film is about a coming of age of a woman and leaves too much to a deus ex Machina that films very unsatisfactory. The Oscar is deserved, and I would recommend the film for a matinee, thoughtful Sunday. But not necessarily cinematic for the big screen.
The Worst Person In The World is out now.