I do not love comparative film criticism. It feels sometimes like a cheep way not to take the film you are discussing on its own terms, instead reducing it to a copy of something that has come before. All that being said it can be useful at times, especially in the rare subgenre in which not that many films exist. Enter Jochum Trier’s The Worst Person in the World the latest addition to the very underserved subgenre of “millennial post college films.” The film features a female protagonist in her mid 20s stumbling to find herself in a big city running through relationships and professions along the way. Sound familiar? It’s frustrating to me that Frances Ha is the one film that really comes to mind in this scenario but watching The Worst Person in the World Frances Ha wouldn’t leave my brain. I feel like it’s hard to talk about the Worst Person in the World without at least comparing it in passing the Frances Ha just because there are not many other films that occupy the same space. So, sigh, I guess I gotta do some comparative film analysis.
First though I gotta get to a couple of things. First it’s very frustrating that there are so few of these kind of “millennial post college” coming of age stories. It’s a fertile subgenre and I feel like too many filmmakers and producers shy away from it because it is a complicated one to tackle. There are two major challenges that spring to mind immediately as to why they might be so difficult to make. For one the amount of empathy required of the filmmaker towards their lead character is astronomically high because it feels as though audiences (especially in the internet age) are less forgiving of adults making mistakes than they are with teens. It makes it a tightrope walk of sorts for filmmakers to try to pull off. How does one make an already adult character humanly flawed without turning off at times judgemental audiences in 2021? Secondly by proxy of taking place a later in life it’s hard to rely on the “firsts” tropes that other coming of age stories have to their advantage. Post college films seem to rely more on feelings about their character’s experiences than the freshness of the experiences themselves which requires more nuance on the whole and nuance now a days does not come easy. Despite this it is still frustrating that these films about millennial adult life don’t seem like they really exist, especially given how many “Gen X in flux” movies seemed to get made in and around the 90s and the mid 00s.
The second thing I wanna tackle is The Worst Person in the World on its own merits because there is plenty to talk about here independently on how it interacts with Frances Ha. Firstly this is a brilliantly made film from a technical standpoint. One of the things that Trier explores is how to visually represent feelings and experiences. He often does so in utterly spectacular fashion. One sequence in particular involving a time freezing fantasy and the main character Julie (the utterly spectacular Renate Reinsve) running through the streets of Oslo displays a sense of longing visually as well as I have ever seen before. The extended scene is virtuostic, using plenty of long moving shots and a spectacular visual concept to its advantage but also does a great job at servicing the intimate on top of being flashy. The flashy fantasy sequence is able to transition brilliantly back to reality and deliver one of the most painful and intimate conversations in the entire film. Trier’s sense of how to meld fantastic setpieces and intimate emotions is admirable and perhaps the film’s best quality.
The issue The Worst Person in the World runs into in its back half is an over reliance on melodrama. Trier uses more melodramatic plot beats, a cancer diagnosis to someone close to Julie, and the ever looming conversation of children as a way for the film to be reflective and unfortunately it all comes off as an unnecessary crutch of sorts. It’s almost as if Trier doesn’t fully trust the audience to fully empathize with the characters without having to insert big tragic life events. It makes the back half of The Worst Person in The World frustrating especially given how great the first half of the film is.
This is unfortunately where comparisons to Frances Ha make themselves because the one thing that feels missing at the center of The Worst Person in the World is Greta Gerwig. What has made Greta Gerwig’s films so special is her superhuman ability to empathize with her characters. No matter how many mistakes she makes or frustrations she causes Frances is always empathetic. There is no need to use big storytelling or tropey feeling devices to make it work. There is an underlying trust in the audience that Gerwig possesses that seems absence here. It’s what makes Frances Ha a special film and where The Worst Person in the World comes up slightly short.
That’s it for now! See you at the movies!
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