There are films that move because of plot, and then there are films that move because of rhythm. “Sentimental Value” is firmly the latter. On the page, Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt’s story of an aging filmmaker asking his estranged daughter to star in his deeply personal script reads like chamber drama. In the edit, it becomes something more delicate: a psychological balancing act where silence, glances, and restraint carry as much weight as dialogue.
Directed by Trier and co-written with Vogt, the film follows Gustav, played by Stellan Skarsgard, as he returns to Oslo intent on mounting one final project. He wants his daughter Nora, portrayed by Renate Reinsve, to lead it. Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning round out an ensemble that operates in careful equilibrium. That equilibrium helped propel the film to nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Editing, Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director and all four principal actors — a rare achievement for an intimate international drama.
What stands out immediately is how the film breathes. The design of the family house becomes part of the storytelling. Rooms feel loaded with history. Distance between characters reinforces unresolved tension. Blocking and framing are deliberate, but it is in the edit where that architecture finds its rhythm.
Olivier Bugge Coutté has worked alongside Trier and Vogt for decades, shaping films such as “Reprise,” “Oslo, August 31st,” and “The Worst Person in the World.” Their collaboration is grounded in trust. “It is an easy collaboration,” Coutté tells Awards Focus. “There is a great amount of trust.” That shared language allows for structural risks and refinements deep into the editing process.
Finding the right tone in “Sentimental Value” was, in his words, “Very, very, very hard.” The first cut ran three and a half hours. The final version runs two. “It’s a constant balance where scenes come and go.” In the pivotal scene where Agnes tells Nora she has read the script, a planned tracking shot was ultimately removed because “it felt like it was already telling the audience what the feeling was going to be.” Instead, the moment plays primarily in two angles, staying close to the actors’ faces. “For me, the drama and the character’s expression are number one.”
Coutté avoids cutting unless the emotion demands it. If a performance carries a full arc within a take, he lets it run. At the same time, larger structural recalibrations were necessary — trimming a 26-minute sequence in France to 16 and restoring a key scene to strengthen Nora’s trajectory. In a film without external spectacle to drive momentum, balance becomes the engine.
The result is a film that trusts performance and audience alike. Awards Focus spoke with Coutté about shaping emotional rhythm, maintaining equilibrium across four central characters, and making the editorial decisions that ultimately defined “Sentimental Value.”
Awards Focus: One of the most striking aspects of the film is the pacing. How difficult was it to find the right balance between stillness and letting moments breathe while ensuring the film never felt slow? How hard was it to land on that perfect tone?
Olivia Bugge Coutté: Very, very, very hard. It truly is a balance. I can tell you that the first version of the film was 3.5 hours, and the final version is exactly two hours without credits. So, of course, a lot has been shaped.
We try—and I say “we” because we’ve been working together for so long—to make films that balance strong psychological drama with scenes that are heartfelt. At the same time, we like balancing that with humor, music, and montage. I can’t give you a specific recipe for how to do it; it is a feeling first. Technically, I start by doing the whole script version, and then you can see where there is too much emphasis on a certain part. That has to be shaped down. Perhaps there are too many jokes in one area and we’re losing the drama, so we take them all out. Then it might get too painful, so we put one back in. It’s a constant balance where scenes come and go.
AF: I imagine it’s particularly challenging when you have so many long shots on a character’s expression, whether it’s Nora and Gustav or Nora and Agnes. Knowing exactly how long to hold a shot like that must be difficult. I’d love to discuss the scene where Agnes goes to Nora and says, “I finally read the script.” There are so many beautiful angles of Nora reading by the bed. How many angles was that shot from, and how did you choose which ones to use given there is almost no dialogue?
Coutté: That’s an interesting question. For those scenes at the table and on the bed, Joachim generally doesn’t do many takes—maybe between three and five—but he does quite a few angles. In the scene where she reads the script, the original intention was a track-in from the side that moves slowly toward her face as she realizes what the script is about; once the track reached her, that’s where she starts crying.
The shot was there, but it felt like it was already telling the audience what the feeling was going to be at the end of the shot. Instead, we only used two shots—one on each side of the sisters. For me, the drama and the character’s expression are number one. You can feel every millimeter of their psychology and their emotions going up and down when you’re very close on the axis. Joachim shoots very close to the axis when people are in a cross like that, so we were very aware of that and dropped a lot of angles.
AF: The film does a wonderful job of maintaining the perspectives of all three leads. From an editing standpoint, how do you ensure the narrative remains balanced so it doesn’t become just Nora’s film or Gustav’s film?
Coutté: That is the challenge of a multi-character film. I often use the example of an acrobat in a circus balancing four plates on sticks; if you don’t give energy to all of them, they start falling. You have to give energy equally to them, otherwise, you lose a story.
The first version we cut of the sequence in France was 26 minutes. Looking at that, we knew it was too long. We couldn’t be away from Nora for 26 minutes, so that scene had to come down by about ten minutes. In a character drama like this, we don’t have a suspense threat or an external driving engine like a terrorist group. We only have the drama between the characters moving the story forward.
AF: When you have a shot between two people—say, Nora and Gustav—is there a specific technique you use to ensure the emotional power is communicated effectively?
Coutté: One thing that is very important for me—which requires the actors to be as good as they are here—is that I don’t want to cut if I don’t need to. I love when I can see an expression develop from one emotional state through a whole arc. For example, an actor realizing something has happened while they are happy, and going all the way through that pain until the tears come. If the acting is strong and correct for the scene, I will let that shot run until everything has been transmitted. As soon as you cut, the audience can feel that something else is being told. Why shouldn’t I follow the feeling in her face very closely? In the scene where Nora reads the script, there are only two cuts back to the sister because you follow Nora’s development all the way through.
AF: Regarding Nora’s emotional arc, how much of that emerged in the edit versus what was in the script and the performance?
Coutté: I could take hours to talk about that because there was a structural change in the middle. The scene where Elle and Nora meet at the theater was actually planned to appear after a breakdown. However, that felt wrong because the scene between the two sisters on the bed feels so much like the culmination of their story. After that, you want to go to the ending.
Up until three weeks before the end of the edit, that theater scene was out of the film, which made Nora’s emotional arc quite thin in the middle. By putting that scene back in, her arc became very strong. Instead of just being lost, she appears strong; she essentially gives her father away to this other actress, like a wife giving a mistress to her ex-husband. That lifted her whole character.
AF: You have a long-standing history with Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt. What does that collaboration look like when you want to propose something different than what was in the script?
Coutté: It is an easy collaboration because, beyond having very similar tastes, we are friends on a personal level. There is a great amount of trust. I can always ask him to give me a couple of hours to try something, and he’s completely up for that. Sometimes he comes to me and asks me to be his “hands” like a robot for two hours just to see how something looks put together. That openness allows us to create new scenes and new ways of looking at the script.
AF: I noticed a few instances where there were longer pauses or “black” edits that felt like natural breaks, almost like a commercial break if it were on television. Was there a specific intent behind those longer transitions?
Coutté: I would have to see the specific scenes to give you a detailed answer, but generally, those are for the emotions to linger. It is a constant play between how much feeling you want to give the audience. To be honest, there is a lot of people crying in this film. If you don’t cut it a little bit hard sometimes, it will be so full of feelings that the viewer might lose interest. It’s a fine balance between cutting hard out of a scene before it gets over-emotional while still being interesting enough to drive the momentum forward.
AF: Finally, it’s usually hard for a viewer to tell which part of a movie was the most difficult to assemble. What was the hardest scene for you to edit in “Sentimental Value”?
Coutté: It was the section in France. It was simply too long and the emphasis was wrong. There was too much on Elle Fanning’s character. She is fantastic and plays the role brilliantly, but the character had to be cut down because of the role she played in the overall film. When you have four strong characters up against each other, one sometimes has to sacrifice a bit of screen time. Once we realized that was the way to go, we were able to take that 26-minute sequence down to 16 minutes. That was a tough one to work on.
AF: It is an amazing film. I’m sure the actors are grateful for your work, as the whole ensemble has been recognized with nominations. Thank you so much for your time and safe travels to San Francisco.
Coutté: Thank you.