Joachim Trier and writing partner Eskil Vogt have crafted a romantic comedy/drama that manages to play by genre rules and invigorate them at the same time. The Worst Person in the World is the third film in the "Oslo Trilogy" by Trier, and while I haven't seen the first--Reprise from 2006--I did recently enjoy the second in the trilogy--Oslo, August 31--which also features an engaging central performance by frequent Trier collaborator Anders Danielsen Lie. In Worst Person Danielsen Lie plays Aksel, author of an R.Crumb-esque underground comic called "Bobcat," and a far cry from his characterization of the removed and nervous drug addict in Oslo, August 31. But, as has already been rightly, resoundingly praised, Renate Reinsve as Julie is the film's beating heart. The 12-chaptered course of the film (plus a Prologue and Epilogue) follows Julie through her late twenties and into her thirties, through her relationship and co-habitation with Aksel, and into a relationship detour with barista Eivind, played winningly by Herbert Nordrum. Yes, there's a love a traingle, a barista, a comic book artist, a mushroom trip scene, and a story thread where aspiring feminist columnist Julie writes an article on oral sex in the #MeToo era that goes viral. Itemized as such, it all reads like a fairly recombinant exercise of elements, but the extent to which Worst Person is able to balance these seeming clichés of the genre against characters so richly drawn is what separates it from the pack. In fact, Worst Person is the kind of film that almost seems to call out the general banality of most rom-coms. While recent American entries in the genre--I'm thinking something like Always Be My Maybe, The Lovebirds, or I Want You Back--are not entirely unsuccessful and kind of fun in their own way, it seems the expectancy for them to aspire to nothing more than their function as a Netflix or Amazon-funded dopamine hit for the quarantined and/or lonely relegates them to being almost entirely forgettable (I can't recall much about the plots of these film; only their general gloss remains). Without entirely unpacking the more undesirable shifts in cinema that have occurred in the age of streaming content, I think it's safe (and sad) to say that a platform like Netflix regards your tendency to re-watch something because it's greatness warrants repeatability, or because it's so bland that you forgot you've watched it once or twice before, as no difference at all.
All the more important to take particular note of something like The Worst Person in the World, and I say that at a distance from the part of me that finds it's narrative and artistic mechanics a lot less thrilling than a number of more adventurous favorites from last year--from Annette to Zola. In particular, it's important to note how beautifully photographed Worst Person is, and in a way that immediately elevates it beyond a sea of streaming content satisfied to get by on high-key lighting and unbelievably large sets that we're supposed to buy as affordable urban housing. Trier has said he's more interested in "light" than "lighting" as a director, and the evidence of that thoughtful approach is on the screen to drink in. On one level, Worst Person is a beautifully lensed vacation to the city of Oslo, Norway, with cinematography by Kasper Tuxen. Tuxen recently shot a film that is worth mentioning in conjunction with this one, the comedic revenge-thriller Riders of Justice, directed by Anders Thomas Jensen and starring Mads Mikkellsen. While Riders of Justice, perhaps, doesn't quite succeed as fully within the action genre as Worst Person does within the dramatic rom-com genre, what it aspires to, likewise, makes it's American counterparts seem unambitious by comparison. What American action movie have we seen lately that is simultaneously a successful action picture and a mediation on statistical probability, chance, PTSD, and modern masculinity in an age frighteningly adjusted to the norms of sex trafficking and terrorist bombings?
While Riders of Justice feels a bit strained under the weight of all it aspires to (though entirely compelling for what it gets right and all it attempts), The Worst Person in the World feels effortlessly balanced in relation to what it evokes about modern love and relationships in the digital age. What further sets the film apart is the attention to character, particularly in their responses and interactions. If you're like me, a number of rom-coms manage to turn you off in the first few minutes because no interaction feels genuine and the characters seem like sketches made from already sketchy notes--they're either desperately going for laughs in an attempt to elevate a mediocre script, or scripted into situations that are needlessly cynical depictions of the business world, education, journalism...all the realms of the rom-com. In the recent Amazon-produced comedy I Want You Back, a typical nice guy played by Charlie Day works in the heartless corporate world of retirement home planning, which we identify through cold board room discussions about how to save money by investing in fake chicken product, a characterization so thin and unfunny that the only way it could be made more ridiculous is to find out Day's only ambition is to start his own ethical retirement home (which, yes, is what we come to find out). Contrast something like this to the "Bobcat Wrecks Christmas" scene in Worst Person--while I'm not a rom-com completist, I think it would be difficult to find many scenes in American movies of this ilk as carefully drawn as how we see Julie's reaction to Aksel being "taken down" on a podcast that takes a critical feminist lens to his work; it ends with a wordless, impeccable take that refuses to reduce how we or they might feel. I think much of Worst Person succeeds in the careful framing and consideration of reactions like this--the situations are nothing original on paper, but the responses are so carefully fleshed out.
No one is really explicitly referred to as the "Worst Person in the World" in The Worst Person in the World, even though Eivind does reflect on himself in those terms at one point in the narration, in relation to his eco-conscious girlfriend causing a shift in his self-perception. But, this utterance of the title in the film feels less like it's laid at the feet of Eivind, and more like a sentiment that pervades the egos of everyone in the film, extended to anyone who has ever had an exaggerated sense of self-loathing. I'm not sure I'd call the picture "deep," but it's smartly rooted in the times, and in no way feels trapped by them. Although Aksel's ailing "physical media" monologue is most conspicuously aimed at my demographic, and at least inspired A.O. Scott to write a Gen-X reflection on the topic, it made me more tired of my own middle-aged and mopey laments than filled with any sense of profundity. Then again, it's likely Trier is successfully playing the dissonant notes of both genuine lament and self-mockery at the same time, since Worst Person seems to be that accomplished in regards to what it wants to express on the whole.
The Cursed is an atmospheric new take on the "werewolf" movie, a genre that always seems a risky proposition, and likely has many more misses than hits at this point. By way of a fresh approach that digs deep into late nineteenth century gypsy mythology, The Cursed manages something that doesn't seem strictly interested in laying out the rules of the genre, but more interested in allowing the audience to discover them anew via a fresh batch of cursed characters: wealthy landowners in rural France who have seized a patch of land previously occupied by Roma tribespeople. Early in the film, director Sean Ellis (who made the similarly well-lensed Anthropoid in 2016) orchestrates a single-shot massacre of the tribe so remarkable and horrific in it's staging that The Cursed gets off to a promising and focused start. Unfortunately, what is so potent about the perspective of that early scene is rarely regained in the picture.
As the curse takes hold, involving a set of animalistic, silver teeth buried beneath a crucified tribesperson, the dreams of the wealthy family are pervaded by relentless visions of a demon sporting the rather gnarly silver grill. It isn't until the appearance of pathologist John McBride (Boyd Holbrook), his family recently ravaged and destroyed by the same curse, that the trajectory of the film takes shape, but amid various depictions of the curse taking local children and townspeople, the action of the film has difficulty finding it's footing. Alternately aided by some impressive and inventive practical effects--as with a dissection of one of the demons that recalls Rob Bottin's indelible creations in John Carpenter's similarly claustrophobic 1982 film The Thing--and let down by some digital effects that just fall short in the final cut, The Cursed is a bit of a mixed bag in terms of technique. The pacing and editing feel rushed, and often in relation to a special effect that needs to hold the right weight within the action of the picture, as with the tentacle-like tendrils that protrude from one of the possessed and ultimately root in the bed of a river, pulling them to their demise. While the visual ideas are often as compelling as that sounds, they aren't rendered in a way that feels well paced or proportioned in relation to the overall action of the film, as is the case with nearly every third scene.
I found myself being increasingly puzzled by the question of why The Cursed doesn't work, especially with a couple of great scenes in tow, and a highly defined palette which can only be described as "intensely smoky." The film is often beautiful, as if drawn in charcoal. Yet, The Cursed never finds traction, and isn't helped by the perfectly functional performance of Holbrook as a sort of Van Helsing-esque, tortured hero. Perhaps it will do well with fans of the genre desiring a new angle, which might be enough for some. And, maybe I was done with werewolf movies after Joe Dante's The Howling. I should add that while my heart is always with the classic Universal monster films, Lon Chaney's The Wolf Man never quite thrilled me like Frankenstein. While The Cursed is certainly playing with the gothic style of those classics, it doesn't feel destined to persist in the cultural memory very long, even for most horror fans.
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