Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (2021) opens with a solitary figure centred on the screen, as dusk settles on Oslo in the background. We view the protagonist, Julie (Renate Reinsve), from side-on. At first, she glances beyond the camera where a lavish book party for her partner, Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), is in full swing. Then, she gazes the other way at the city sprawled out beneath her, seemingly fraught with possibilities. The first minute of the film is dedicated to this take, followed by its title displayed over black – plainly symbolic of the existential angst, self-dissatisfaction, and restlessness of modern existence that awaits.
A third-person narrator informs us of Julie’s thoughts as she flits between career paths, relationships, and identities, trying to find her feet in her late twenties and early thirties. She switches from medicine to psychology, then photography, sometimes writing, while working a temporary job at a bookshop that becomes permanent. Her romantic pursuits are also ever-changing, involving a professor and a model, before she lands on Aksel. Eventually, she leaves him too, for Eivind (Herbert Nordrum) – a charming guest at a wedding she crashes. Trapped in a perpetual cycle of self-discovery and self-doubt, Julie is an embodiment of contemporary womanhood and the emotional contradictions it entails: empowered yet insecure, passionate yet aimless, desired yet misunderstood. Relatably, she worries endlessly about her life decisions.
There is something intoxicating about watching an unhinged woman unravel on the screen. Perhaps it taps into a collective desire for catharsis in a world where women are expected to be composed and self-sacrificing, and are rarely afforded the opportunity to be selfish or messy. In Julie, Trier crafts not an aspirational figure, but a deeply human one, one that isn’t punished for her flaws but is allowed room to exist in multitudes. She makes innumerable poor choices but, nonetheless, they are her choices. She carves her own path, refusing to be a “spectator in [her] own life”, even if it means leaving behind everything she knows or hurting others. Even if this path is a lonely one.
The film gets its title from a self-deprecating Norwegian expression one utters after making a mistake. It becomes clear that “The Worst Person in the World” is not a label to be attached to anyone in particular, but rather a reflection of each of us being our own worst critic. If we are all “The Worst” according to ourselves, then truly nobody is. The narrator describes what is happening on screen with objectivity, never passing moral judgement on Julie. It is a soft-spoken voice, perhaps comforting because it encapsulates the way in which we wish to be perceived – with compassion and patience, particularly in a rapidly evolving society that is predisposed towards alienating the “unfit”.
The final scenes are neither triumphant nor tragic. Julie is single and working as an on-set photographer, perhaps still searching for her place in the world but no longer running from her uncertainty. After all, there are never really any wrong choices in life – there is just life.
Illustration by @olivialiseth_art on Instagram.