Could be ‘The Worst Person in the World’ isn’t the movie you think it is

When you first come across the movie title “The Worst Person in the World,” your gut reaction is probably to assume the film is a drama. Maybe it’s a Sundance indie centered on a selfish character trying to get over that seminal moment in their past or maybe it’s even a dramatic thriller. It’s fair warning then, that Joachim Trier’s Cannes winner of that title is nothing of the sort. It’s actually, of all things, a romantic comedy.

“I was pitching it way back to someone, and they said, ‘What? ‘Worst Person’? are you making a film about Donald Trump?’ I was saying, ‘No, no, it’s ironic. It’s a Norwegian expression.’ But I think it works in English too,” Trier says. “It’s when you feel like you’re a personal failure, like, ‘Oh, I’m the worst person in the world.’ It’s a self-deprecating statement, in a way. I think it has humor to it, I hope it translates.”

On closer consideration, perhaps this Norwegian Oscar contender should be more accurately described as a romantic dramedy. It has, as Trier notes, been referred to as “the rom-com for people who hate rom-coms.”

Written by Trier and Eskil Vogt, “Worst Person” follows twentysomething Julie (Renate Reinsve) as she tries to balance her changing career goals while entering into a pretty serious relationship with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), a successful illustrator a good 15 years or so older. Julie’s already complicated life situation (she simply can’t figure out a career path) becomes more tangled after she meets Elvid (Herbert Nordrum), a less ambitious spark than Aksel who is closer to her own age.

Filmmaker Joachim Trier.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times/Los Angeles Times)

Trier, who like Aksel’s character, is in his 40s, admits he’s a personal filmmaker, but also hopes that both he and Vogt are just good observers of people. Their goal was to be humanist and open in telling a story that decidedly isn’t theirs. And as longtime film buffs, they are also big fans of screwball comedies from the ‘30s and ‘40s. In their view, romantic comedies haven’t been taken seriously as the great existential film genre that it is. They wanted to play with genres and twist them. And, perhaps, that opened the door to explore their own experiences.

“I know who this Julie is, I know who this Aksel is, I feel them in me. I feel them in people that I’ve been close to,” Trier says. “I think it’s that way for the actors too. That’s my job as a director. How can they reveal themselves in a part that I wrote, so that it feels like they are that character?”

Trier is assisted in this effort by a top-notch cast, including Reinsve, who took the best actress honor at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in July. Trier first worked with her on his 2011 drama, “Oslo, August 31st.” She now famously had just one short line in that drama, but he recalls thinking at the time, “Damn, she’s good.” Surprisingly, despite celebrated performances on the stage, the stardom he expected to come her way didn’t come to pass. Part of the impetus for “Worst Person” was his realization that, “Gee, I got to write one for her.”

“You’ve got to have a few things you believe in, to really make the leap into a project, and she was a big one there,” Trier says. “She’s incredibly funny, incredibly charismatic, and she makes me feel safe on set as a director, because I know we’ll explore something. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the morning. We do a lot of preparations, we do plan. But as Isabelle Huppert, who I worked with on ‘Louder than Bombs,’ said, ‘On the day, we put it all away and we see what happens.’ Renate has those guts, and that spirit, and we have great trust between us. So she would push scenes far, and I would go along and try to support her, to explore.”

It’s the perspective of age, however, that Trier continually comes back to. He’s been through the bumpy parts, and some joyful parts, of life. From his view, he’s in a much humbler and, perhaps, humorous place than he was 10 years ago when he wrapped up his celebrated “Oslo” film trilogy. In hindsight, “Worst Person” is about him being older and wanting to explore how to accept yourself. And, well, finally making a romantic comedy.

“I know I’m that European art house guy, but I went out on a limb with this, and I really wanted to embrace that notion that it’s not a romantic comedy, it’s kind of more of a romantic melodrama,” Trier says, finally giving us an accurate category for the film. But then, that serious side pokes its head out as he adds, “But there is something truthful in how negotiating relationships will be an existential journey.”