Our take
The film opens with Julie in her early twenties, longing to pursue a career in medical school. But after briefly testing the waters, she switches over to psychology, only to drop completely out of school and transform her hobby of photography into a professional career. This indecisiveness carries over in most aspects of her life, including and especially in romance, where impulse and desire drive her to run after what she believes to be love. The movie follows Julie as she navigates adulthood in modern Oslo—at once a specific yet universally relatable story about the growing pains of growing up.
With The Worst Person in the World, Joachim Trier scores again with another life-changing Norwegian drama about longing, love, grief, and finding your place in the world. His films can be quite sad but amidst all the drama, moments of happiness and hope are scattered throughout, as it is in real life.
What it won
Oscars
2 noms
Cannes
1 win · 1 nom
BAFTA
3 noms
Sundance
1 nom
Nat. Board of Review
2 noms
NYFCC
1 nom
LAFCA
1 nom
European Film Awards
2 noms
César Awards
1 nom
Goya Awards
1 win
The story
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.
Elsewhere
"“The Worst Person in the World” strikes me as believable, beautiful, roving, annoying, and frequently good for a laugh."
— Anthony Lane
"Joachim Trier's fifth feature is a sweet, sad, extremely funny character study that gets to the heart of how it feels to be on the cusp of true adulthood and completely ambivalent about it."
— Hannah Strong
The details
