We follow Julie\u2019s journey of self-actualization through twelve chapters of varying lengths, and two defining romantic relationships. Her indecisive college years and her eventual career are relegated to a prologue and epilogue. Structurally the film resembles a short story collection, although the irregular use of third person omniscient narration over some chapters often feels unnecessary. Trier and cinematographer Kasper Tuxen marry these literary trappings with lush cinematic technique. The above mentioned scene in which all of Oslo freezes as Julie rushes towards a new lover is about as swooning as cinema can get. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI feel like a spectator in my own life,\u201d Julie shares with her partner Aksel (a tender Anders Danielsen Lie), in the midst of their prolonged breakup. A famous comic book artist 15 years her senior, Aksel had warned Julie before they first got together that she needed time to grow and he would just hold her back. Julie needed to learn this lesson for herself, and while Reinsve\u2019s emotional honesty is tremendous, the manner in which Trier shows Julie\u2019s growth sometimes feels just as patronizing as Aksel himself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We rarely see Julie with any other women. When we do see her with other women, it\u2019s cursory at best, combative at worst. She cruelly states all the women in her psychology class have eating disorders. She bums cigarettes from a group of women at a wedding she crashes. She causes mayhem for a frazzled mother during a weekend trip gone awry with Aksel\u2019s family. She visits her mother for her 30th birthday celebration. She criticizes the Instagram of the ex-girlfriend of her second boyfriend Eivind (Herbert Nordrum). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet, Trier peppers the film with stabs at feminism. At dinner during the family weekend, Julie says if men had menstrual periods they\u2019d flood pop culture like morning erections before being castigated for womansplaining. She pens a viral essay about enjoying giving blowjob called \u201cOral Sex In The Time of Me Too.\u201d During her 30th birthday the narrator contemplates how the lives of her ancestors, all the way back to her great-great-great-great grandmother, were so much worse because they were women. Later Aksel\u2019s comic comes under fire by feminist radio hosts for its rampant sexism after being adapted into a feature film. <\/p>\n\n\n\n All of these moments are half baked. They\u2019re all there, but don\u2019t go beyond a surface level understanding of feminism. Maybe that\u2019s the point, as we\u2019re on a coming-of-age journey with Julie. But coupled with Julie\u2019s seeming lack of any female friends, it’s hard to believe they\u2019re supposed to be this intentionally vapid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although we briefly meet Julie\u2019s mother, it\u2019s implied her issues stem from her broken relationship with her father. In this cliched story beat, we learn her father abandoned one family in order to start a new one. So Julie\u2019s relationship with the much-older Aksel may have at its roots daddy issues even if, as Aksel insists, what they have is rare and true. Again, the way Trier reveals this is patronizing. He holds on Julie\u2019s anguished face while her father lies to her about why he didn\u2019t read her viral essay, then has Aksel stand up to him. Later we only hear about her taking action to cut her father off, we don\u2019t see her<\/em> take this action. For a film supposedly about a woman\u2019s emotional growth, Trier is often far too interested in showing how these men push her forward, rather than showing her<\/em> actually move forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In Julie\u2019s connection with Eivind, she shows a similar proclivity to try something shiny and new as her father. They meet at a wedding she\u2019s crashed. Immediately attracted, but both in relationships, they see how intimate they can get without actually physically cheating. They lean, they touch, they bite, they smell each other\u2019s sweat, they use the toilet, they blow smoke into each other\u2019s mouths. It\u2019s a hot scene, the chemistry between Reinsve and Nordrum undeniable. Trier ramps up this passion by boxing the two tightly in the frame. The romance of it all is given a dreamlike slow motion haze. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike her relationship with Aksel, where she claimed everything was on his terms, she finds a more dominant voice in this new relationship. Julie is no longer a spectator in her own life. In the first half of the film, Trier\u2019s camera focuses on Julie\u2019s observant face and her silent reactions to what is happening around her. In this second half, there are far more full body shots, with Julie making her way in the world as an active participant. This visual switch is fully realized in the epilogue, where Julie is not only in full charge of her life, but also calling shots as an on set photographer. Where Trier\u2019s opening shot gazed on Julie, as the story concludes Julie is now the one gazing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the emotionally raw performances at the heart of the film and some remarkable cinematography, in the end Trier\u2019s script relies too heavily on tropes without much insight or subversion of them. The plight of intellectuals in love, arty women finding their voice, and overcoming imposter syndrome have been done before, and done better. Reinsve carries much of the film with her buoyant star power, while Lie imbues greater depth into the film\u2019s cloying final sequence than it deserves. Regardless of its flaws, and although a little too self-satisfied with itself, The Worst Person In The World<\/em> is far from the worst way to spend two hours of your life.\u00a0 “The Worst Person in the World” is out Friday in limited release.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/worst-person2-scaled-1024x554.jpg\")
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