‘The Worst Person in the World’ Is One of the Best Cinematic Portraits of the Millennial Journey 

Alci Rengifo

In many ways Julie (Renate Reinsve) is the embodiment of a generation. She is nearing 30 at a time when such a milestone means something completely different than in past eras. No relationship is definite. A college degree does not automatically answer all your career questions. And like any generation, her life ebbs and flows. Had “The Worst Person in the World” been an American film, Julie would no doubt become embroiled in a feel-good rom-com. Under the lens of director Joachim Trier, this Norwegian film takes the microcosmic details of a life’s compartments and makes them hypnotically watchable. It has the feel of looking back at life as if remembering a dream where we picked up other characters along the way.

When we first meet Julie she’s a medical student in Oslo, without real passion for her academic pursuit. She switches to psychology before deciding maybe photography is her real call. To make a living she gets a job at a local bookstore, which let’s her pursue her other interests.  At 29, she then meets Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), a successful artist famous for a raunchy comics series who is also 15 years older than her. They begin a relationship and move in together. For a while it seems like a fulfilling, growing bond, but Julie’s continuing self-discovery also clashes with Aksel’s more settled idea of life. He wants to have a child, she’s nowhere near ready for that. She meets his friends and feels distant from their world. After wandering away from a book launch party for Aksel, Julie crashes a party and meets a guy closer to her age she instantly connects with, yet only goes so far as to flirt with cheating before saying goodbye, without even exchanging each other’s names. Each moment, each experience, contributes something to Julie’s story and the evolution of her life, where no course is ever fully charted.

Trier’s approach is almost a subversion. Characters like Julie tend to be presented as offbeat, quirky millennial types who just need the right relationship to finally bring order to their chaotic existence. “The Worst Person in the World” is different. It’s an elegant, sober take on how some people are outliers in how they don’t force themselves to follow one track. This is indeed even more true for many millennials. Julie attains her own agency despite feeling judged by older types. Aksel applies a form of pressure by wondering why at nearing 30, Julie doesn’t automatically want to have a baby. Had she forced herself to finish a medical degree, a more comfortable life would have been in the cards. The point is Julie didn’t really want to do it, which may resonate even more in this year of the Great Resignation. Trier’s screenplay with Eskil Vogt carries a wonderful irony in the title. When Julie breaks up one of her relationships seemingly on impulse, or when she looks so frustratingly undecided about what to do with her life, the automatic response could be to roll one’s eyes at her lack of direction. What we seldom like to admit is that Julie isn’t some rare case. She is all of us. At many points in our journeys, we can certainly feel like the worst person in the world.

The narrative of the film is divided into chapters, a common practice these days, but Trier uses the technique effectively to guide us through the stages of Julie’s choices and how they develop. “The Worst Person in the World” is one of the best recent films about how our existence can sometimes be summed up through a string of moments. At school Julie may sleep with a professor, which propels her to new decisions. An evening with Aksel and his friends, where a farcical accident makes everything feel awkward, can subtly fuel her future drive to seek greater freedom. She writes a column about oral sex that goes viral, suggesting she does have much to share with a wider audience. The night at the party, where she meets Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), who is already married but feels an instant, mutual attraction, beginning with how both don’t want to have children. The sequence feels like a dream, as such moments do when we experience them away from the routine of daily life. Later she bumps into Eivind in the “real” world and has to choose whether to take a new leap or not. Without too much bombast, Trier forms other details that hint at Julie’s formation. There’s the deadbeat dad who can never make it to anything. He can’t even bring himself to visit Julie and Aksel at their apartment. Such moments make it clear why someone like Julie has to wing it so often, or why very brief, small shades of self-loathing rear up in her personality. 

For Trier “The Worst Person in the World” is a refreshing change in tone for the director. Usually a filmmaker of dark, intense stories like “Thelma” or “Oslo, Aug. 31st,” here he has made a portrait rich in its lack of cynicism combined with a special lucidity. Julie has moments of despair without turning into a depressive character. Her moments of heartbreak are authentic and honest, her search for a surer footing is universal. Trier stages an inventive scene that feels like a comment on similar moments in American films like “500 Days of Summer.” Julie feels a sudden drive to run out of her apartment and rush through streets where everyone has suddenly been put on pause, like statues or snapshots of the world that’s always going on outside her window. Visually it’s a potent allegory for what “The Worst Person in the World” evokes so well. We are all microcosmic players in a grand panorama of countless people, all making decisions, tough choices, impulsive moves and either surrendering to convention or being free. Renate Reinsve, who is a fantastic discovery with a performance that combines empathy and frustration, channels a generation alongside universal truths about being a person trying to figure it all out. In a month that’s lacking in reasons to head out to the theater, this one is worth seeking out. It’s one of the year’s first excellent films and one of the most relatable.

“The Worst Person in the World” releases Feb. 4 in select theaters.