The Fraught Sisterly Dynamics of ‘Sentimental Value’ Made Elle Fanning Nervous When Her Sister Dakota Screened It For the Fi

Elle Fanning says her work on the complex family drama Sentimental Value left her feeling her own familial anxiety when her older sister, Emmy nominee Dakota Fanning, screened filmmaker Joachim Trier’s Norwegian film for the first time.

“I think we had a Q&A afterwards and I just started crying,” Fanning admitted during Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles panel for the movie, alongside Trier and co-stars Renate Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter and Stellan Skarsgård.

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“I was like, ‘My sister’s in the audience!” Fanning continued, noting how the film’s emotionally charged relationship between the two daughters (Reinsve and Ibsdotter) of a filmmaker father (Skarsgard) left her jangled as her real-life sibling watched Norway’s official Oscar hopeful. “I wanted to give her a big hug because particularly the scene that [Reinsve and Ibsdotter] have together on the bed — and I’m the younger sister, she’s the older sister — I think Joachim just captures that relationship so beautifully. So I was happy to share it with her. And we had a big cry and hug after the film.”

Although Fanning was the only American performer in the film, much like her Hollywood actress character who finds herself suddenly enmeshed in a charged family dynamic, she says she didn’t feel like an outsider when she joined the cast and crew in Oslo.

“Not really,” she said. “I think I am such a Joachim Trier fan, and Renata and Stellan, and to get to meet Inga, and like Stellan said, I would’ve said yes to a very, very small part, just one line, to be in a Joachim Trier film. I was such a fan. And so for me, I didn’t feel, even though I’m playing the outsider, I certainly didn’t feel like an outsider.

She added: “I was very much included, and we had a great rehearsal process, which is very important to Joachim. On one of our first Zoom calls, that was something he said to me: ‘Please come to Oslo. This is how I work. We have rehearsals together in the house, in the space with everyone one-on-one and really not over-analyzing anything.’”

Fanning added: “This is a very personal story to all of us, because Joachim allows us to share our own experiences with each other. He kind of shapes the character to you or cuts lines out that he doesn’t think need to be said and kind of lives in those silences. The film is so emotional, and I think it’s because we all felt that way. We all felt very raw and open, and it was an incredible set and experience and really the best experience I’ve ever had. The environment that he creates is really special.”

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