Best Picture Power Rankings and the Super-Sincerity of ‘Sentimental Value,’ With Joachim Trier! Plus: Regretting ‘Regretting You.’

Summary

The Big Picture – Episode Summary

Podcast: The Big Picture
Hosts: Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins Date: November 24, 2025
Episode Title: Best Picture Power Rankings and the Super-Sincerity of ‘Sentimental Value,’ With Joachim Trier! Plus: Regretting ‘Regretting You.’

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Episode Overview

This dense, lively episode covers the state of the 2025 movie industry, two major new releases ("Regretting You" and Joachim Trier’s "Sentimental Value" — with an in-depth Trier interview), and a comprehensive update of the hosts’ running Best Picture power rankings. Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins mix high-tier Oscars analysis, signature banter, and revealing industry insight for listeners who want to know what’s actually going to shape this Oscars season.

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Industry News: Warner Bros. Discovery Sale (03:01–18:10)

Key Points:

• Major speculation about the imminent sale or merger of Warner Bros. Discovery, discussing three key bids: Paramount/Skydance, Comcast (Universal), and Netflix.
• Sean and Amanda weigh the ramifications on theatrical filmgoing, IP consolidation, and the fate of beloved properties.

Discussion Highlights

• Paramount/Skydance is considered the frontrunner; the merger would bolster Paramount’s weak IP reserves.
• The “split sale” scenario posits Comcast taking HBO, Netflix absorbing the Warner film studio — Amanda and Sean see more risks than upsides.
• Full Netflix absorption is considered most worrisome: it endangers theatrical windows and physical media, threatens the Warner Archive, and could mean enduring changes to film fandom.

Notable Quotes

• Sean [06:13]: “The good outcome is a lone man comes along who has 500 billion dollars and says, I would like to own Warner Brothers and make it the single greatest studio in the universe.”
• Amanda [13:29]: “They’ll condition audiences over time...things will be a little less good and they will spend a little less time caring about theatrical.”
• Sean [15:29]: “The consolidation is really, really alarming...More power being held in the hands of a fewer number of people whose taste I don’t really like.”

Industry Takeaway

• The business shakeup comes just as Warner has had its best year in ages, making the industry’s move toward more algorithmic, less daring content especially bitter.

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Review: “Regretting You” (18:10–48:01)

Film Details

• Regretting You: Directed by Josh Boone, adaptation of the Colleen Hoover novel. Cast: Allison Williams, McKenna Grace, Dave Franco, Mason Thames, Scott Eastwood, Willa Fitzgerald.

Hosts’ Impressions

• Sean and Amanda see the film as emblematic of a new wedge of melodramatic, hyper-sincere, and somewhat baffling yet successful content aimed at a massive Colleen Hoover fanbase. The film is “bad and insulting” in ways they both find fascinating and fun to deconstruct.

The Hoover phenomenon (20:02–23:41)

• “BookTok” and TikTok are major forces; Hoover’s stories are siloed but powerful with a “hyper-specific style of melodramatic, soapy writing.”
• Amanda [20:54]: “Colleen Hoover was propelled to success through BookTok. This is a real thing. It is just siloed from the world that you and I live in until we go to the movies.”

Plot Dissection (24:37–39:00)

• Breakdown of the film’s jumble of betrayals, reveals, and time jumps.
• Admiration for McKenna Grace’s tense mother-daughter scenes with Allison Williams, but bemusement at Dave Franco and Williams playing teens in flashbacks.
• Repeated focus on the absurd dialogue and stylized, misguided sincerity.

Cultural and Commercial Context (40:00–46:00)

• The film is a hit with moms and daughters, performing well at the box office.
• Amanda draws connections to Nicholas Sparks films, Lifetime movies, and the appetite for melodrama.
• Anticipation for more Colleen Hoover adaptations — the formula “critical car crash” as an emotional inciting incident is cited with both humor and concern.

Memorable Moment

• Sean [33:13]: “There are a series of moments...where characters say things to each other that I’m like, a person wrote this?”
• Amanda [34:33]: “She’s becoming kind of a genre queen...One of the great aspects of Marnie on Girls is that she kind of knows the weird, desperate, I need-to-be-famous thing...”
• Amanda and Sean’s deep dive into the movie’s AMC product placement and “cinephile” teen boy character (39:07–40:18)—including the choice to make his favorite movie Patriot Games—provides comic relief.

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Review: “Sentimental Value” by Joachim Trier (48:01–72:07)

Film Details

• Sentimental Value: Norwegian family drama about a filmmaker patriarch and his two adult daughters reconnecting after their mother’s death.
• Cast includes Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Elle Fanning, Inga Ibsdatter Lilleaas, Anders Danielsen Lie.

Critical Discussion

• Sean calls it “one of my favorite movies of the year...completely knocked out emotionally.”
• Amanda: “Aftersun annual I’m Dead Inside award...Structurally and intellectually very sound...I just didn’t connect to it emotionally.”

Key Discussion Points

• The film’s tone: sincere, literary, uses a “montage-driven” approach.
• Central performances: especially Skarsgård (“catnip” for Sean) and a notably restrained Renate Reinsve.
• Family legacy and depression themes—“the cycle of depression through families” and intergenerational similarity.
  • Sean [55:12]: “The way you pass things down to your kids...It can be beautiful to be very similar to a parent; it can also be really challenging—a constant push-pull.”
• Amanda finds the film “durational…very honest representation of depression, but tricky as a movie.”
• They discuss the deliberate lack of catharsis and lack of sentimentality. Reference points include The Royal Tenenbaums, Aftersun, and earlier Trier works.

Notable Quotes

• Sean [54:23]: “It is very much the cycle of depression through families.”
• Amanda [65:28]: “You are dead inside. Well, I said that I was. That's the name of the award, you know, it's a good award.”

Reception & Oscar Prognosis (72:07–78:10)

• Strong Cannes response, in contention for Best Picture, acting, director, and international categories.
• Skarsgård is a likely Best Supporting Actor candidate.
• The film is dividing critics and audiences: some find it deeply moving, others respect but feel detached.

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Interview: Joachim Trier (96:10–126:30)

Highlights

Creative Genesis

• On the anxiety of following Worst Person in the World: “You try to accept that there's an anxiety for failure in the room.”
• Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt drew on new experiences as fathers and sons of living parents: “How can we make it interesting and cool and specific to talk about family dynamics?”

On Depicting Family Artists

• Trier, a product of an artistic Norwegian family, was interested in the interplay between creativity, intergenerational trauma, and emotional incapacity.
  • Trier [104:28]: “Being human is doing stuff like [creative expression].”
  • Trier [105:16]: “Inside that father is a wounded child…That’s the only way to reach some sense of reconciliation—see the honesty about your parents’ struggles.”

Process and Casting

• Wrote specifically for Renate Reinsve; long casting process led to Inga Ibsdatter Lilleaas as the sister.
• Deep dive into the “house” as a physical and emotional anchor for generations.

Meta Moment

• Trier describes delight at screening in Cannes where the movie shows DVDs previously shown in that same theater—“complete meta.”

Artistic Ethos

• On moving from punk autonomy to “a more emotionally open and tender place” as he ages: “There’s kind of a strength, even a masculine strength, to being emotionally available…to have sensitivity to things I value more and more.”

Soundtrack & Titling

• The soundtrack crosses genres to match the film’s emotional register—Terry Callier and Labi Siffre are touchstones.
• “Sentimental Value” is meant to evoke a subjective, personal, lived value—“It’s not just about a coffee cup from your grandmother.”

Hollywood Prospects?

• Trier finds U.S. movies inspiring, but relishes Norwegian freedom: “Shoot on 35mm, work with my friends, cast who I want, and have final cut…That's a pretty sweet deal.”

Film Recommendation

• Trier shouts out Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” as the “masterpiece” and highlights the “personal score” that unites Anderson’s work.

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The 2025 Best Picture Power Rankings (78:10–95:51)

Top 10 (as of this episode):

1. One Battle After Another
2. Hamnet
3. Sinners
4. Marty Supreme
5. Frankenstein
6. Sentimental Value
7. It Was Just an Accident
8. Avatar: Fire and Ash
9. Train Dreams
10. The Secret Agent

Other contenders debated: Wicked for Good, Begonia, J. Kelly, Rental Family, No Other Choice.

Amanda and Sean walk through each position, discuss studio dynamics, box office, Oscar voting blocs, and their evolving rationales—e.g., “Marty Supreme” benefiting from strong marketing, “the big box office movie slot,” and the weakness of the international field this year.

Notable Banter

• The infamous “jacket” bit with Amanda angling for a Marty Supreme film promo jacket, and the “ping pong ball head” gag for Sean.
• Amanda’s ongoing campaign to attend Timothée Chalamet’s 30th birthday.
• Sean [84:38]: “There definitely is...like, a dob mob—3,000 dob mob girlies at home quietly masturbating every time you’re like, ‘I just want to drink tequila and dance to Nelly.’”

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Memorable Quotes

• Amanda [20:03]: “It’s bad and insulting…to moms who like wine, but maybe even inspiration boards.”
• Sean [44:45]: On Colleen Hoover films: “Her core audience is single divorced moms...There’s plenty of people who would love to read stories where they feel seen in those stories.”
• Sean [67:40]: “He’s trying to do something super sincere…That sincerity can sometimes really bump up against people, too.”

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 03:01 — Warner Bros. Discovery sale analysis
• 18:10 — “Regretting You” (plot breakdown, cultural/industry analysis)
• 48:01 — “Sentimental Value” review (structure, theme, Oscar position)
• 96:10 — Joachim Trier interview (creative process, family, meta-cinema)
• 78:10–95:51 — Oscars Power Rankings and back-and-forth banter

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Final Thoughts

This episode embodies The Big Picture’s strengths: trenchant industry knowledge, passionate (sometimes divided) film analysis, high-spirited banter, and a timely, thoughtful filmmaker interview. If you’re following the 2025 Oscar race, you won’t find a more comprehensive, funny, or insight-packed episode. Even the films’ flaws and industry anxieties are grist for a rewarding conversation steeped in a love of movies—sentimental value, after all.

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[This summary focuses on content, not commercial reads or episode intro/outro sections.]

Transcript

[Sean Fennessy]

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[Amanda Davis]

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[Sean Fennessy]

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[Sponsor Announcer 1]

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[Joachim Trier]

Oh, yeah.

[Sponsor Announcer 1]

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[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Sponsor Announcer 1]

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[Sean Fennessy]

I'm Sean Fennessy.

[Amanda Davis]

I'm Amanda Davis and this is the.

[Sean Fennessy]

Big Picture, a conversation show about sentimental value and sentimental crap or bad dads and their distant daughters. On today's episode, we're discussing two new releases. The first is the latest Colleen Hoover adaptation, regretting youg, which has quietly become one of the most successful films of the fall and is an utterly baffling slice of melodramatic poppycock. Amanda. The second film is Joachim Trier's Sentimental, a family drama about a patriarch filmmaker and his two daughters in the house that binds them. It's the new film from the Norwegian filmmaker for me, one of his best yet. I spoke to Joachim. You can hear that later in this episode. He's a very thoughtful and interesting guy. He's been on the show before. We'll also cap off the month of November with an updated best picture power rankings, which will be the last time we talk best picture until the Golden Globe nominations on December 8th. How are you feeling about that?

[Amanda Davis]

Are we coming in at 7am I think so. Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think I need to see Song Sung Blue that morning, so we're going to come in early.

[Amanda Davis]

Oh, I thought that you were saying that you needed to see Song Sung Blue before the Golden Globes nominations were announced. I think they'll be in the musical comedy category. I think it could be. They want Kate Hudson at that table.

[Sean Fennessy]

They do. They do. Okay. Before we get into all of that. And that is a full slate. Yeah. Normally that would be more than enough for an episode, you know, conversation with a filmmaker. Two new movies. We're recording this on A Friday. This is a fateful Friday. I don't know what's going to transpire over the next 72 hours before this.

[Amanda Davis]

Episode drops me a lot because you know what I just remembered we're recording this before Thanksgiving and I'll never forget. I go back to Philadelphia every year for my in laws Thanksgiving. And I remember being in my husband's childhood bedroom when the news that Chapek was out and Iger was in hit and I think that was the Sunday or Monday before Thanksgiving. So yeah, because I was in Zach's Philly bedroom.

[Sean Fennessy]

I have no recollection of that can.

[Amanda Davis]

Be an eventful time of the year.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's a news dump time for sure. It's a time when you bring in some big information. Now the biggest thing that is going on in Hollywood right now is of course the imminent seemingly sale of Warner Bros. Discovery. This has been a slow moving car crash for five plus years and we're finally getting to this place where Zaslav and co are starting to, you know, figure out who they're going to move this company into the hands of after, I would say mismanagement over the last few years. The initial bids on this were due on Thursday at noon pt. Reportedly three bids came in. A bid from Paramount, a bid from Comcast and a bid from Netflix. Okay, now I just want to talk very briefly with you about the different permutations, what could happen, what it could mean and I don't want to take any bets on what's going to happen because I think a sale like this, a merger like this has a lot of unfortunate ramifications. So I don't want to make too much light of it. But it is very, very important. It is vitally important to the future of film, to the future of theatrical distribution, to, to the future of the entertainment industry because Warner Brothers is one of the signature studios in the history of this business. So here's what could happen. I've listed it in what I think is order of likelihood. You can tell me if you agree or disagree with this. The first permutation, Paramount, Skydance buys Warner Brothers Studio and hbo. They bundle all of the streaming properties that are valuable to them from Paramount and, and the HBO properties and whatever attendant stuff comes along with that, TNT and so forth. And then they also get the movie studio so they get the full slate. They get Batman, you know, they get Barbie. They get all the stuff that is part of the Warner Brothers universe. Harry Potter, Harry Potter, which is going to be a television show very soon on hbo. And Trump, being a fan of the Ellisons.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Pushes that merger through. And it happens. That, to me, feels like the most likely outcome.

[Amanda Davis]

I think so. I mean, some of that likeliness stems from the fact that it's been the most covered in the media, the most speculated. There have been the most conversations that we know of. And because Paramount has just kind of been looming, you know, lurking around Warner Brothers for a year or so, this.

[Sean Fennessy]

Has been, I think, critical to Ellison's strategy in general. He says that they can build, but it would be helpful to Paramount, which has a much more threadbare collection of IP than the other big studios, which is one of the reasons why it's been so challenging for Paramount over these last 10 years as a movie studio. Here's the next, I think, most likely option. This is just based on kind of what I've heard around town and a little bit of my own gut, which is that Zaslav and co decide to split the sale in two. And that Comcast, which is, of course Universal, and Peacock and that whole orbit, gets HBO and they plug that right into their television streaming ecosystem, and Netflix gets the Warner Brothers movie studio. I wouldn't be happy about this. I don't think this would be a great outcome.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think it potentially.

[Amanda Davis]

Would you be happy about the first outcome where.

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't think not.

[Amanda Davis]

Skydance, Warner Brothers, there's no good out.

[Sean Fennessy]

The good outcome is a lone man comes along who has 500 billion doll and says, I would like to own Warner Brothers and I would like to make it the single greatest studio in the universe. Now I can create like a real time analog for that experience because I am a fan of the Mets. And like, this actually literally did happen with the Mets, where a guy came along who is the richest owner in North American sports, and he was like, I'm gonna buy this team and I'm gonna pour everything I have into making it great. It's been mixed results, so that doesn't guarantee anything.

[Amanda Davis]

That's what I was gonna say, is that I'm like, I'm thinking off the top of my head of men who have $500 billion or more and how things have gone for their companies and in some cases for the studios that they have purchased.

[Sean Fennessy]

It doesn't always work.

[Amanda Davis]

So far, not great, no.

[Sean Fennessy]

If Elon Musk came in and bought Warner Brothers, I don't think that that would necessarily create a good outcome. So I'm. I do. But I do think that that.

[Amanda Davis]

So you inherit $500 billion.

[Sean Fennessy]

I would 100 in a second, that is.

[Amanda Davis]

What do I get to do?

[Sean Fennessy]

Whatever you want. You're coming with me on the ride. I mean, obviously I have no idea how to run a business at scale, but I do think that you want somebody who loves this stuff. Totally. And the one thing I'll say for the Ellisons, David Ellison, he does like movies. We probably have different taste in movies, but he wants to make movies and wants to put movies in movie theaters. He has been the number one supporter of Tom Cruise and his theatrical journey over the last 10 years.

[Amanda Davis]

I have thanked David Ellison for top Maverick and Top Maverick alone. And I stand by that.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. Comcast buying hbo? I don't really know. I don't. I guess I don't know enough about the TV business to know what that would mean. Obviously Peacock is significantly smaller than HBO and hbo, maybe they, maybe they swallow Peacock or maybe there's some sort of expansion.

[Amanda Davis]

So then that would mean that Taylor Sheridan is now Casey Bloys problem.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, some might say it's Casey Bloys solution.

[Amanda Davis]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know that he is a portal to long, long lasting audience. You know, HBO is on a little bit of an upswing in the aftermath of Task and you know, Chris and Andy talked on the Watch last week about how they've just renewed a bunch of shows probably with the anticipation of.

[Amanda Davis]

This sale coming, including the game, all the Game of Thrones stuff.

[Sean Fennessy]

So in order to talk about the Netflix part of it, we have to talk about what I think is the third most likely outcome, which I don't see as happening, but we have to talk about it. So this could be Netflix just buys everything outright. They buy the Warner Brothers movie studio and they buy hbo. I think this would be extremely detrimental to both the Warner Brothers studio and HBO because Netflix, which is more than within their right, would want everything to be Netflix first. Matt Bellamy has a long piece in his newsletter over the weekend about how Netflix feels about theatrical. Ted Sarandos has been consistent for a long period of time that he does not. He believes theatrical is outmoded for consumers. And there's been countless debates about how many theaters and for how long many of their films should play and what kind of business they could have gotten out of the knives out films or Giyomoto's Horse, Frankenstein or any number of movies that seem like they had like a real A vibe amongst audiences. But none of that stuff is publicly reported. We had the whole K pop demon Hunter sing along thing where they dominated the box office one weekend. We know that they have the ability to do this and to support it.

[Amanda Davis]

They're putting Stranger Things, one of their most successful TV shows, into theaters. And it's a TV finale at movie length in movie studios.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davis]

So up is down.

[Sean Fennessy]

And we know Greta Gerwig's Chronicles of Narnia film is also going into movie theaters and is getting an IMAX exclusive release. So a lot of signal and a lot of noise in this equation. I agree with how Matt framed this discussion, which is my gut would tell me that they would abide by all of the previously made agreements with all of the talent and all of the film properties up through the conclusion of those agreements after a merger, acquisition, and then after that would do what is best for Netflix, and they would pursue concurrent windows where films go in theater. You know, day and day films go on the service and films go in movie theaters. And then slowly, over time, you just have the absorption of one of the biggest and most important studios into the streaming platform. It's not good for a variety of reasons. One, obviously, it would kill theatrical if you just take one more player off the board. We lost Fox six years ago. Fox now puts out half as many movies as they did when they were.

[Amanda Davis]

Operating in the end. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

So we already have too few movies to support the theater industry. And then, you know, for my own very selfish personal reasons, like, it probably spikes home video, like, forever. Like the sort of the physical media Blu Ray market and Warner is a huge part of that. And the Warner Archive is very special. Like things like the, you know, one battle after another. Steelbook selling out in like five minutes or whatever. That's a small, small, small, small, small, small, small slice of the pie.

[Amanda Davis]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

But it's like a thing that makes people care more about movies. And if you take it off the board and Netflix would be within their rights to take it off the board because they're a streaming platform, then there's gonna just be this removal of a certain of a few phases of film fandom that I would see as destructive. I could be wrong. I reserve the right to be wrong. I reserve the right to even watch Netflix rebuild theatrical in America and support Blu Ray production and encourage home collectors. But very little of what they've done in the past indicates that they would.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, I would say that previous evidence suggests that they will enter, you know, an arena of the industry, whether it is theatrical or, you know, owning Warner Brothers or. The example I'm gonna use is just like making films with great filmmakers and spend a ton of money, give everybody what they want, and make Everything look very rosy and like promising and you'll get the Irishman and you'll get Marriage Story and you'll get Roma and you'll get like what was really like a golden age of truly good work made by some of our greatest filmmakers. No doubt at a time when no one else in the industry would pay for that sort of stuff. And that will fall somewhat flat in the eyes of Netflix, Netflix's metrics. And they will walk it back bit by bit and just do less and things will be a little less good and they will spend a little less time caring about theatrical and suddenly, oh look, fewer theaters are available and no, that doesn't really make sense for us. And it will happen slowly and they will condition audiences over time. But yeah, I don't think there'll be a theater first company. I don't think buying Warner Brothers is like, okay now, now we really believe it and now we're like revitalizing amc.

[Sean Fennessy]

I fully agree with you. I don't think that that would be logical for what their business is. There is, there is a significant difference though between the original work that they have developed and produced and distributed and bringing in some of the most known quantities in movie history. Like if you go through the Warner's archives, there are so many different kinds of stories that have proven to be incredibly durable through 75 years of theatrical distribution in home video that like to have Batman and to make a Batman movie and to make it a streaming first movie or a day and date movie, that feels dumb. Like that actually feels like bad business.

[Amanda Davis]

Well, sure, but Warner Brothers has already done that, you know, True. So. And I remember because I watched the Batman starring a very tall Robert Pattinson at home over the span of four nights. And then I could didn't know who the Joker was.

[Sean Fennessy]

But that was in brief though. In a time of transition, Warner Brothers still has a 45 day window like Universal has a 17 day window with some gradation based on box office. But Warner Brothers is one of the few studios still Warner's and Sony and Disney are like, we still have to let these movies play for a little while. And that keeps that business in place. This would be a real threat to it. To me it's not a sky is falling moment. This is gonna take a while to play out. But we've had very few conversations about it on the show recently. And now that the bids are in and it feels real, I think I'm maybe a little bit surprised that it is just these three big conglomerates that are Coming to the table as opposed.

[Amanda Davis]

To Apple or random guy being like, let me. I mean, we saw how well it went for David Zaslav when he bought Robert Evanson's home.

[Sean Fennessy]

No.

[Amanda Davis]

Or Desk or whatever.

[Sean Fennessy]

Whatever it was, it doesn't seem like that is ultimately going to be perceived as a success in the arc of business. I think his sale, you know, the amount of money that they get for the business will be perceived as a success. The stock's been going up since all of this discussion has been happening. But, you know, it was previously owned by a phone company, you know, and telecom couldn't make it work. We've seen, you know, Time Warner Inc. Has been kind of passed around and moved through various states of ownership over the years. They just haven't had that perfect ownership experience, I guess.

[Amanda Davis]

We were doing the Redford hall of Fame, which will come out later this week, I believe, and the number of Paramount, a Gulf Western companies that I watched even doing that. We have been here before. The consolidation is the really, really alarming part. And that is alarming on, like, a broader market level in terms of fewer movies and fewer. More power being held in the hands of a fewer number of people who I don't agree with and whose taste I don't really like. And then also the consolidation of the industry. Jobs loss, like the very basic, like working here in Los Angeles, which has been hit so many times this year. That's bad news. But that's true of any of these outcomes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, that might be the most important note, is that this no longer being an independent entertainment entity is not really a good thing in a variety of ways. Okay. I guess we'll have to see what happens.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, that's exciting.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, you know, the bitter irony of all of this news is that Warner Brothers has obviously had the best year of any major studio, at least to this point. They don't have any more releases for the rest of this year. And they did it by doing what we want them to do, which is that they located two or three big properties, right? Two or three event movies, Minecraft, Superman, you know, we said, okay, we're gonna put a lot of energy into those things. And then we're gonna take some bets on some people we know are talented, whose ideas we think are good. And so we'll get sinners, we'll get weapons, we'll get one battle. We'll put a lot of eggs in those baskets and. And maybe a few of them will hit. And most of them did. And now the takeaway from that is let's break it apart and actually not use that wisdom and actually be algorithmically minded in terms of how we produce content. It's just disappointing. It's disappointing.

[Amanda Davis]

And part of it is that this is owned by some conglomeration that was created from the leftovers of three different conglomerations that was merged 20 years ago with, you know, our Internet and got every, like. It's just. It has been like a chess piece in like a suits leverage game for so many years now. It's. It's a real shame. It is because they're part of the business where they make movies and people go see them. It's kind of working.

[Sean Fennessy]

That being said, the guys in the 1920s and 30s who built this business also flawed men who made a lot of mistakes and treated people badly. So it's not as though we've transitioned from a time of great peace and unity to a troubled moment.

[Amanda Davis]

We're literally talking about a business named after Jack Warner.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's right. Okay, well, let's pivot away from that. We'll follow that story in December as it continues to evolve, and I'm sure there will be a lot of news. Maybe we should talk to Matt at some point on the show to get his point of view on it as well, because he's been doing great work reporting around that story. Let's talk about a success in movies thus far this year. Maybe a sort of a surprise success, though perhaps not if you know what's really going on in the culture. So this is Regretting youg. This is the new feature film from Josh Boone, probably more specifically the new Colleen Hoover movie, which is probably how fans of it understand it. It stars Allison Williams, McKenna Grace, Dave Franco, Mason Thames, Scott Eastwood, Willa Fitzgerald, Clancy Brown. The logline is this. When a devastating accident reveals a shocking betrayal, Morgan Grant and her daughter Clara explore what's left behind as they confront family secrets, redefine love, and rediscover each other.

[Amanda Davis]

Did you write that logline or did you copy and paste it?

[Sean Fennessy]

I pulled it from probably Rotten Tomatoes. What do you think about what I put there? Is that accurate?

[Amanda Davis]

You know, it was like, good parallel writing. So.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, that's marketing material that I've reproduced here on the podcast.

[Amanda Davis]

I'm sad we didn't see this together.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, yeah.

[Amanda Davis]

I really. And honestly, when it came out, I almost texted you, being like, I think that we should just find a time to go see Regretting you together. And we had other things to do and then we could only fit it in. You know, I saw at 10:30am on a Tuesday screening. Seems like you were a Wednesday matinee weekday.

[Sean Fennessy]

I was.

[Amanda Davis]

So I think the only thing that my only true regret is that this wasn't a communal experience.

[Sean Fennessy]

We're sharing it now.

[Amanda Davis]

This is preposterous. And also the most excited I've been to talk about a film in many years.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. Why?

[Amanda Davis]

Because I thought obviously it's bad and insulting to its audience and literature and the idea of human relationships and also human behavior and I guess cinephiles and definitely moms who like wine, but maybe even inspiration boards. But you and I don't really go in for like, it's so bad. It's good.

[Sean Fennessy]

We don't.

[Amanda Davis]

And that's not. This is not so bad. It's good. But the ways in which it is bad and what it reflects about what works in movies and also just like what women are interested in right now, just socio. Culturally. I could talk about it all day with you. We've been joking a lot about how you and I are on a different Internet and this movie's just like making you be on my Internet. And I say welcome.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's such a Rorschach test for what entertainment is right now because it's like. And I've said this before about even just working in podcasting. Like we're in the era of the hyper niche, right. Where everybody's a super expert on this really small thing. But actually there's more people who care about the small thing than you realize. This show is an example of that. And Colleen Hoover is an example of that. And she has hordes of fans, even though she has this very hyper specific style of melodramatic, soapy writing.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, I think the. The Colleen Hoover thing is just insulated in a way. It is. It is because of the nature of reading and also because the nature of TikTok, which is like you open up your phone and you just sit there and get fed stuff. You don't go anywhere else. But Colleen Hoover was propelled to success through booktok. She is gigantic, selling millions of books like this. This is a real thing. It is just siloed from the world that you and I live in until we go to the movies.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's right. Last year we saw it ends with us together at an early Access fan screening. And it was a lot of moms and their daughters or girls out on a girl's night.

[Amanda Davis]

And there were some boyfriends there.

[Sean Fennessy]

Some boyfriends, yeah. And I'm sure some male Colleen Hoover fans too.

[Amanda Davis]

There were people who showed up like, 45 minutes into the film.

[Sean Fennessy]

That was their big night out. Oh, into the film.

[Amanda Davis]

And into the film.

[Sean Fennessy]

But they were like wine drunk at McGuffin's, you know, well, guess what?

[Amanda Davis]

You can bring it into the movie. But that was the other thing that it was a lot of people who we don't typically see at the movie theater, you know.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. And It Ends With Us was a pretty sizable hit. And I would say the only other comp that I could make to that movie over the last 12 months has been Materialists, where they're very different tonally, I think, very. Two very different kinds of artists. Justin Baldoni and Celine Song. But they both actually, I think, probably captured similar audiences because there is something missing in the culture right now that you can find on streaming, but you can't find in movie theaters very often, at least in terms of marketing a movie, which is saying, like, there's this blend of sincerity and emotional relationship, and maybe you'll get some humor and some fun, too. And one leans in one direction, one leans in the other direction. Materialist turned out to be more serious than we ever would have guessed. Based on the marketing. This movie turned out to be way fucking funnier than I ever would have guessed. Though probably not on purpose with us.

[Amanda Davis]

You and I were both absolutely shocked by what it turned out to be.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. But that was my introduction to the Colleen Hoover world, and I think I was just mystified by its appeal. I now feel more situated in this world, so regretting you. Boy, this is an interesting movie. So Colleen Hoover seems to premise all of her films on these very dramatic but unexplored misunderstandings.

[Amanda Davis]

Misunderstanding is one way of putting it. Betrayals and.

[Joachim Trier]

Or.

[Amanda Davis]

Domestic sexual assaults and violence or another. This one is more betrayal than assault.

[Sean Fennessy]

Right. Well, in the previous film, you know, this idea of sort of like memory holding traumatic experience and then wrong footing an audience through a story by showing us what really happened. Like, this isn't quite in that same realm, but there is definitely, like, the hiding of information for dramatic reveal.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And then this movie does that within roughly the first 30 minutes. And then it's basically a reckoning movie. It's an aftermath movie. Something happens, and then everyone's trying to figure out how to cope with it.

[Amanda Davis]

It has another reveal, though, in incredible flashback form. So there are several different pieces. Actually, there are a couple more reveals.

[Sean Fennessy]

Let's get into the details.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

So in this movie, Allison Williams and Willa Fitzgerald are sisters. The film opens with them as teenagers. Allison Williams is talking to Dave Franco, who's a close friend of his.

[Amanda Davis]

Oh, yeah, I got there a little bit late.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. They're talking and Allison Williams character reveals to Dave Franco's character that she is pregnant with Scott Eastwood's baby. Dave Franco's character, who's named Jonah, is when he learns his information is staring longingly at Allison Williams character Morgan. You can see he feels for her, he wants her, but she is pregnant.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Smash cut, flash forward, right? These four people are grown up, they're adults.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

It feels like they're all living the same house together.

[Amanda Davis]

They live nearby and they're celebrating a birthday party.

[Sean Fennessy]

They're doing breakfast together in the morning though, and handing each other coffee and.

[Amanda Davis]

Oh, no, no. So that's because it's Willa Fitzgerald's first day back at work after her maternity leave.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, but that's a little later in the film. But even at the beginning of the movie, they're all in the house together.

[Amanda Davis]

It's a birthday party, they're making a cake.

[Sean Fennessy]

It seems like they live together. It's very strange. Maybe they live down the road and they're all grown up. And it turns out that Allison Williams and Scott Eastwood have gotten married and they have a 16 year old daughter who's played by McKenna Grace and Dave Franco's character who has disappeared for some time. He's just come back into their world when Allison Williams and Willa Fitzgerald's mom has died or dad has died. I can't remember who it is who's died. Someone has died. Dave Franco returns, has a one night stand with Willa Fitzgerald, she gets pregnant and then she has his baby and he sticks around. And now that quartet of people has been reunited back in this small town. Is it in North Carolina?

[Amanda Davis]

It is.

[Sean Fennessy]

Within. In short order, yeah. Willa Fitzgerald's character goes back to work. I guess she's a nurse. Looks like maybe she works at the hospital.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And Scott Eastwood's character in labor and delivery. Yeah. Scott Eastwood's character, he's headed out to work one morning. McKenna Grace's character is going to school.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

She's kind of a grouchy teen.

[Amanda Davis]

That's right. She's having some drama with a guy who followed her and unfollowed her on Instagram.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. And we very quickly learn that Jenny, Willa Fitzgerald's character and Chris, Scott Eastwood's character have been having an affair.

[Amanda Davis]

No, that's not what we learn. What we learn is that they are in a car crash.

[Sean Fennessy]

They're in a car Crash together. And any thinking person knows what's happened.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. But here's how we learned. It is incredible because there's a car crash. Well, Willa Fitzgerald's character stops responding to the voiceover text messages that McGinna crazed McKenna Grace's character is sending her from lunch period at school because this school has not banned phones yet. And then Allison Williams shows up at the hospital and is looking for her husband and asks for her sister. And then Dave Franco carrying a car seat, like, backhanded, like he's doing like a low five, like backside.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think that's how Nick carries his car seat, to answer the question that you're going to ask.

[Amanda Davis]

But why?

[Sean Fennessy]

I think it's just an easier way to carry it. I think it lightens the weight.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, but I mean, I feel like you don't have enough support and that's really gonna mess up your alignment anyway. And he shows up, but he's confused. Cause he's looking for his wife.

[Sean Fennessy]

They both received calls about the car crash that their spouses were in.

[Amanda Davis]

And then they finally make it into the interior. And the doctor just says, I'm so sorry. And then like all sound cutouts cuts out and they both just crumple the floor.

[Sean Fennessy]

And then huge swell of Grey's Anatomy Score. You know, like, you know, Amen Dunes or whatever band is playing.

[Amanda Davis]

And so they're both in an accident. So we learn that they're dead and thus that they were together and having an affair within the span of two minutes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Now, this is the big dramatic incident of the film happening in parallel. We've got McKenna Grace, the boy that she likes, Mason Thames.

[Amanda Davis]

Are you sure that it said Mason Tems?

[Sean Fennessy]

Mason Thames?

[Amanda Davis]

Well, I don't know.

[Sean Fennessy]

Mason Thomas.

[Amanda Davis]

Is it after the river or is it just.

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't think he was given his surname after the river.

[Amanda Davis]

Right, I know, but are they pronounced. Are they British? Like, are they pronouncing it like the Tims?

[Sean Fennessy]

I'll call Mason. Let's see what he says. Mason plays heartthrobby boy.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

Who is a cinephile.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. And also loves his grandpa very much.

[Sean Fennessy]

And he's very close to his grandfather who's been ill. And he's sticking around to take care of him. And he keeps moving the city limit sign so that he can get pizza delivered to his house. And McKenna Grace observes him stuck on the side of the road. She picks him up, gives him a ride. They meet cute. This all happens in the setup to the movie. And then their story is sort of like the will they or won't they? Kind of back and forth. Where is he gonna dump his girlfriend? Are they gonna get together? Kind of classic teen romance stuff.

[Amanda Davis]

But also she lost her dad, but that's.

[Sean Fennessy]

Her father dies in this car accident. And she's coping with that and trying to figure out what's going on. And while all that is happening and while Morgan and Jonah are trying to figure out how to deal, we start flashing back to them as teenagers. And this movie for the second time in 40 minutes shows us Allison Williams and Dave Franco, who I think are 37 and 41 as their 17 year old selves. I believe there's been some digital alteration made to their faces.

[Amanda Davis]

And freckles on Allison Williams.

[Sean Fennessy]

Freckles on Allison Williams's face, which I. That doesn't go away when you get older, but nevertheless.

[Amanda Davis]

Well, but you get lasers and stuff.

[Sean Fennessy]

You think that this woman, Morgan Grant, has gotten lasers to have freckles removed.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. It does not really seem in the budget, but.

[Sean Fennessy]

And they have. They share a moment as 17 year olds in a pool. They look into each other's eyes. He's clutching her arms. They have chemistry, they have something unexplored, unexamined. They go back to their mates, their partners, but they're flashing back on this. Cause obviously they're really. They're in love. And they've always been in love.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And we know this at minute 42 of the film. And then there's another hour and ten minutes in this movie where we just have to wait for them to get to the point where they realize that they're in love with each other. And then, oh, mechanic Grace finds out and she's devastated that they would be in love with each other, but she doesn't yet know that her father was cheating with her aunt who was actually her best friend. And she's the person who she texted and this would be devastating to her. But then the movie goes on. It's like, it's actually, it's okay because everybody's gonna be happy, it's gonna work out and people are gonna get into college.

[Amanda Davis]

Right? Drama school.

[Sean Fennessy]

She's gonna get into drama school and he's gonna become a film student and he's gonna be the next Scorsese and he's reading Sidney Lumet's Making Movies.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, it's on the bedside table while they're making movies.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. He's got a poster of Patriot Games and Witness. As a 17 year old boy living in North Carolina in 2025, he has everything.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

What. What 17 year old boy has a poster of Witness on their wall?

[Amanda Davis]

I. If there is a listener at home, I mean, I. Do they make movie posters of Witness anymore? It's probably a thousand.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm sure you can get one. But like, I don't know.

[Amanda Davis]

Someone like posted on Instagram recently that the podcast they started listening to when they were 16 was like, that one. I was like, I can't.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, about this show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Amanda Davis]

So listen.

[Sean Fennessy]

Absolutely. We're all dead if there are posters of the big picture. You know, send those to us.

[Amanda Davis]

It is true that the movie references that I clocked in the background, like, do end in 2002.

[Sean Fennessy]

Are they just Josh Boone's favorite movies? Like, what is that in the novel? Did Colleen Hoover write him as a boy who was trapped inside of 1989? I'm so confused by all that stuff.

[Amanda Davis]

Didn't Google.

[Sean Fennessy]

Um. The movie is really silly, like, tonally. It's trying very hard to be dramatic, but it has cast a bunch of people who are kind of like light.

[Amanda Davis]

Comic actors and then allows them absolutely no comic relief. Like, Dave Franco doesn't get to do one funny thing, but he does have to say before, you didn't even talk about how they get to the flashback, which is like they're sitting there commiserating in her living room and she says something about, you know, remember when? Like, I don't even remember this time or blah, blah, I don't know. And he says like, honestly, like a ro. Truly, like, it's AI Dave Franco.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davis]

You know what gets me there is the music of the time. And then he starts like that. That is a real piece of dialogue that I wrote down verbatim on my phone during the screening.

[Sean Fennessy]

The song that plays is like an anonymous stereophonic song.

[Amanda Davis]

I had never heard it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Like, it's just not a song that you're like, oh God, this brings me right back to 2007, or whenever they're supposed to be going back to. And it's just like a series of near misses.

[Amanda Davis]

Texted us. I can't believe I'm getting the spoiled beat for beat, which is really funny. Sorry, Jack.

[Sean Fennessy]

Sorry to anybody who really wanted to see Regretting youg. It's been in movie theaters for one month. There are a series of moments like that where think characters say things to each other that I'm like, who a person wrote this?

[Amanda Davis]

And individually, did a person write this? We actually don't have confirmation that some of this dialogue wasn't written by a robot.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, the screenplay is by Susan McMartin. I assume a person wrote this. Let's talk about Allison Williams and Dave Franco. I really like them both. I think they're both very funny and entertaining. I obviously have long had a soft spot for Allison Williams. Going back to Girls. I think she's really good at being in on the joke. Like, one of the great aspects of Marnie on Girls is that she kind of knows the weird, desperate, I need to be famous thing that is in the tension of that character. Cause she's also embodying that as like Brian Williams daughter and a young aspirant actress. And then if you've seen like the movies that she's made in the last 10 years, especially the M3GAN films, there's an element of camp.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, she's becoming kind of a genre queen. And she's a very like, you know, nervy. Right. On the surface actor and that directors usually know how to play that for laughs.

[Amanda Davis]

Right. I mean, think to the famous scene of her and get out drinking the milk and googling NBA draft prospects.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. So. But this movie is like, no, you're Meryl Streep. You have to be the most serious dramatic actress in America. And you have to sell this car accident. You have to sell your love for Dave Franco, who is normally extremely funny and energetic in movies and is a block of wood in this film, but.

[Amanda Davis]

Also like a weirdly ripped block of wood. It's so confusing. I know, but it's like it doesn't match his frame. You know what I mean?

[Sean Fennessy]

But if you just flipped this and you made Willa Fitzgerald and Scott Eastwood the two leads and put Alison Williams and Dave Franco in the other parts, doesn't that make more sense?

[Amanda Davis]

Yes. But then Allison Franco and Dave. No, Allison Williams and Dave Franco like disappear within 10 minutes. Which is the problem. Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

We're not as sad about saying goodbye to those other two lesser known actors. But just in terms of the, quote, quality of performance, like Scott Eastwood can definitely do what Dave Franco's being asked to do here.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, like, which is nothing. Which is not very much. But to look good. Right. To be desirable to a widow.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

To be like a sweet dad who has a masculine energy that you're excited about as you're grieving.

[Amanda Davis]

Right. At some point, Allison Williams and Dave Franco have to go to like the local Holiday Inn where Scott Eastwood's car still is. And they never. It turns out Scott Eastwood and Willa Fitzgerald never checked out of the local Holiday Inn. So First, Allison Williams is like, we used to come here for special occasions, which is, like, really, really depressing.

[Sean Fennessy]

Extremely dark.

[Amanda Davis]

Like, they're trying to locate this in.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is it a Holiday Inn?

[Joachim Trier]

No.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is it not like a Kimpton or something?

[Amanda Davis]

I don't think it's quite a Kimpton. I think it's somewhere in between. You're right. That, like, it has more floors than I associate with a typical holiday and a little more like extended stay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davis]

But, like, they're in, like, a very vast, empty parking lot that surrounds a hotel. It's not like. It's not screaming, like, staycation, you know?

[Sean Fennessy]

I agree. And where in North Carolina are they?

[Amanda Davis]

So I. It seems like sort of. I was going to say more like Raleigh, Durham, like, Research Triangle area, thereabouts.

[Sean Fennessy]

Cool, Lovely area of North Carolina. I've been.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. So anyway, they drive there, they check out, they get their stuff. And then Allison Williams, like, is, like, trashing her dead husband's car.

[Sean Fennessy]

Literally beating it.

[Amanda Davis]

Literally beating it while wearing her home gear, which is like. Like a dupe for the A Row sweater. I think that's the coast sweater and sweatpants and her little Birkenstock things. And she's, like, trying to separate the muffler from the car. And it was the least compelling physical acting that I have seen in. In my lifetime. Perhaps I'm just like, this is not a person who acts this way.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, I. You know, she's trying. She's. She's miscast. Yeah. I think the direction has let these guys down quite a bit. I think the materials really let them down.

[Amanda Davis]

She's better when she's in, like, worried mom mode. And it gets her closer to control freak. Marnie, though. Allison Williams is forever too much of a control freak to have had a teen pregnancy.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's a great point.

[Amanda Davis]

And then be at this point in her life where she's just let go of everything. But when they're doing the inspiration board, you can see. I can see Allison Williams being like, now I will manifest this. I can see her dipping in, being like, you need to get your attitude right before you sleep with your.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, you're right. The stuff between her and McKenna Grace is actually probably the best stuff in the movie. And that is maybe the most. That feels the most real. Like, I don't know if Colleen Hoover's a mom or not, but there's definitely something about the tension between teen girls and their moms, and especially younger moms who are closer in age to their daughters, and that there is, like, a closeness that Then can really fracture hard.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And that stuff is cool, and we've seen it before in movies, but, like, it doesn't. It's not. It's not embarrassing. Kind of anytime there's a boy on the screen, it's like, what?

[Joachim Trier]

Horrible.

[Sean Fennessy]

Who wrote this? Alien.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

The Mason Thames character and the Dave Franco character are both so weird.

[Amanda Davis]

Can we talk about.

[Sean Fennessy]

No. Interior life.

[Amanda Davis]

No, no, no. Excuse me, excuse me. The teen boy character. I can't say Mason.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davis]

One name. Mason, because I don't know how to pronounce his last name. Works at an amc, and there is extensive AMC spotcon. So much in this film.

[Sean Fennessy]

So much.

[Amanda Davis]

I mean, you've got the logos. You've got. Do they make, like, an A list joke they do in the film? Like, multiple scenes are set there.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Did this film play in Regal theaters?

[Amanda Davis]

I saw it at a Regal. So I was like, what's going on here?

[Sean Fennessy]

It's fascinating. Do you think they had fewer screening times, fewer screens in other competing theaters because of this clear relationship between the studio?

[Amanda Davis]

I didn't do the work. I didn't do the research, but I would assume so.

[Sean Fennessy]

So this guy works at an amc, but he's like, my favorite movie is Patriot Games. Very weird. Like, not a movie you saw when you were 10.

[Amanda Davis]

Listen, I don't know. Maybe he's just really into Harrison Ford again.

[Sean Fennessy]

Like what?

[Amanda Davis]

I don't know.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. Mason Timms character's fine. There definitely are boys like that. I'm kind of a boy like that. I love old movies and I'm a cinephile and all that stuff, but it just feels, like very manual.

[Amanda Davis]

He's employed.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's employed. And he has great care for his relatives. Right. He's really looking. Clancy Brown, the great Clancy Brown, one of the great character actors. Kind of just like, doing his absolute best. I think he knows this isn't the best material he's ever been a part of.

[Amanda Davis]

Also, Mason's character takes McKenna Grace's character on a date to see Clueless at the aforementioned amc.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. What'd you think about that?

[Amanda Davis]

And then they're. Well, they were making out too much to actually see the film, but that's okay. But then they do have a moment to discuss that she is still a virgin, much like Cher, and that she's gonna wait until. They're gonna wait until prom night. And he's very respectful.

[Sean Fennessy]

So nice to just see Dan Hedaya projected on, you know, just that. His wonderful performance in Clueless as Cher's dad. So this movie, of course, is a hit. It's a more modest hit than it ends with us, but it's kind of tracking to get over $50 million in the US which is a lot for these kinds of movies, especially this fall where we've been talking about how movies are not doing so hot, and you were kind of circling this. But, like, what does this mean? Is an interesting conversation. We've got two more Colleen Hoover movies coming next year. Yeah, you've got Reminders of Him starring Michael Monroe, and then Verity, which stars Dakota Smith.

[Amanda Davis]

Reminders of him also stars Bradley Whitfer and Lauren Graham as the parents.

[Sean Fennessy]

And Tyreek Withers.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes. And they ask Bradley Whitford to punch Tyreek Withers at some point during the trailer, which I only recently saw, and I was very, very concerned.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think Bradley Whitford also gets to say the line, if not for her, our son would still be alive. And I want to point that out because that film also features a critical car crash as a plot point. So, like, how many car crashes are there in the Colleen Hoover universe?

[Amanda Davis]

I don't know.

[Sean Fennessy]

Like, is this a recurrence where, like, people keep dying in car crashes and then that gets the engine of the story going, pardon the pun.

[Amanda Davis]

Probably. I mean, I think some of the other. I have not read the full oeuvre. There are many, many books. I mean, I think, like, domestic violence or, like, bad relationships are also a theme, and I shouldn't conflate the two, but, like, you know, domestic violence is one theme, and then also just sort of imbalance of power and, you know, like, emotional abuse, maybe. And then I think teen pregnancy definitely figures, and not a lot of things where it's just people like ships passing in the night, you know.

[Sean Fennessy]

So I just want to say there's nothing inherently wrong with melodrama, and melodrama has been a part of Hollywood history, like, always. You know, like, Gone with the Wind is a melodrama. Douglas Sirk movies, like the Way We Were Speaking of Redford, Steel Magnolias, like, these kinds of movies have always been here. They're always successful. The movies I just named are good. And these Colleen Hoover stories just seem, like, real rickety and lame. I understand why they work. I do feel that for the last 20 years, prior to her rise, a lot of this stuff was confined to Lifetime, the Lifetime channel.

[Amanda Davis]

Well, to me, Nicholas Sparked is the. Is the analog. Yeah. And, you know, I had written in my notes, like, it's like Nicholas Sparks, like, minus the teen pregnancy. But then I Googled the plots of a lot of Nicholas Sparks novels, because there are many of them he's publishing at a volume not unlike Colleen Hoover. And there are a lot of people who are single parents or had their kids young or whatever. So he might be slightly more interested in older people.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's what I was gonna say. I think of that as a frame for.

[Amanda Davis]

But that's also just because those are the more successful adaptations that were, you know, like specifically the Notebook, which does also have, you know, the teens. Teen versions of those characters. Have sex in the room with the piano in the house.

[Sean Fennessy]

Colleen Hoover, to me, and this is completely speculative, having just seen two movie adaptations of her work, but she seems to be singling out single divorced moms. Like, that seems to be, like, her core audience in terms of the stories that she's telling and the kinds of characters that. That she wants you to feel for, which is, of course, like a ripe audience.

[Amanda Davis]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

There's plenty of people who would love to read stories where they feel seen in those stories. There's nothing really inherently wrong with that. I'm just kind of like, okay, so now this is three movies in a row. Just having seen the reminders of him trailer where I'm like, something bad happened. And then we got to spend an hour figuring out what happens next after the bad thing that happened.

[Amanda Davis]

Right. And do people. But I mean, that is. I'm looking at all of the Nicholas Sparks adaptations. The Notebook, for sure. Something bad happened. They were separated, and then we. And then dementia. A Walk to Remember.

[Sean Fennessy]

I haven't seen that.

[Amanda Davis]

I think. I think that's cancer. I think that's like, terminal illness.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is that Mandy Moore?

[Amanda Davis]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

And Shane West.

[Amanda Davis]

That sounds correct.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes. And let's just make sure that it's Shane West. It is. Yes. Message in a bottle. I don't really remember what happened to.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's Costner, right?

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, yeah. Kevin Costner.

[Sean Fennessy]

Robin Raypin.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. And she's a newspaper editor. But I think he lost someone in his life.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Davis]

Dear John is Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum. Don't really remember what happened. Last Song. Miley Cyrus. Liam Hemsworth. That's Young people. And something bad.

[Sean Fennessy]

Should we do a Nick Sparks pod?

[Amanda Davis]

I guess so. I mean, but it is. You know, these are all ridiculous. They're Young love or Hit Me with an anniversary.

[Sean Fennessy]

What's a good 2026 anniversary? Is there any 2006 Nick Sparks movies?

[Amanda Davis]

So the choice, which I've never seen. Let's Google the choice. A 2016 romantic drama. Two neighbors who fall in love at their first meeting. The movie stars Benjamin Walker, who I loved. Teresa Palmer, Maggie Grace, Alexandra Daddario.

[Sean Fennessy]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Go back. Teresa Palmer, Maggie Grace and Alexandra Daddario in the same movie.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes. Tom Welling. And I will give you $1 million if you can name the. Let the aunt. And who. Who's the last person credited here?

[Sean Fennessy]

Whoopi Goldberg.

[Amanda Davis]

Tom Wilkinson. All right, so what happens in this? So Travis is a veterinarian. And also another similarity between Colleen Hoover movies and Nicholas Sparks. Nicholas Sparks movies are. All films are all set in North Carolina and most of North Carolina, because that's where he is. So this is Wilmington, N.C. falls in love with Gabby Holland. She lives in the house next to door. They don't like each other at first. There's a complication with a rescue dog and puppies. They spend time together, they start a relationship. Other people come back. Oh, traffic accident. She survives it. Is now in a coma. Travis has shown her DNR order and asked to sign it. Oh, my God. Does he sign it? As a. A hurricane hits their house, Moby helps Travis find the wind chimes. She's welcomed Gab. Gabby. Gabby wakes up. Wait, Gabby wakes up? I thought we were supposed to do.

[Sean Fennessy]

This for the pod. What are you doing? Why did you do that?

[Amanda Davis]

I was gonna keep reading. It's on Wikipedia. And there's also. Oh, there's a child, but it's not theirs. And. Great. Okay. Woo. So the choice was actually, it was not about abortion, but it was related and they chose, quote, unquote, life.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's so perfect that we've talked about this film and this wave of films ahead of the Sentimental Value conversation.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Because they're not dissimilar.

[Amanda Davis]

You're right, you're right, you're right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Like, Sentimental Value is a drama with elements of melodrama. It is a family drama in which misunderstandings between family members have seeded over long periods of time.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And has driven division between people who ostensibly love each other. It's kind of a perfect match, though, to say, like, here's how you can do it one way and here's how you can do it another way. Now, you don't have to like either one or you can love both. I'm not saying that they're mutually exclusive. And I didn't have the worst time ever regretting you. I thought it was. I think if you go in looking to laugh, it's a lot of fun because the line readings are preposterous.

[Amanda Davis]

We didn't even talk about the Third Eye Blind, Grey's Anatomy cover. Every one of these has like a ridiculous.

[Sean Fennessy]

The music is absurd.

[Amanda Davis]

Song of our Youth covered in the like wispy style that was often featured of Grey's. Yeah, yeah. And this was How's It Gonna Be? Which was iconic.

[Sean Fennessy]

All bad and sentimental value as well. Like music is a huge part of it. It's like kind of a needle drop bonanza where there's all these songs that Trier is choosing to kind of make you feel something, but they're all slightly more obscure and slightly more, you know, art house artistic. I've been looking forward to talking with you about this movie. So this movie is like one of the big movies at Cannes I think we've seen now. And we'll get into it when we do the rankings that really the Cannes films have kind of held weight over a nine month period that has defined this year. And one of the reasons why I think that the fall has felt so soft to us is because we've kind of known about all these movies for a very long period of time. So when you look at this and you look at it was just an accident. And you look at Blue Moon, which was at Berlin, and you look a handful of films that really made their mark in the spring. It didn't feel like what hit in September and October felt very meaningful. But sentimental value now, after hearing about it for a long time, is finally in theaters. It's going wide this week and it is a reunion of Trier and Renata Renzvi, who I think made a lot of noise in the United States with the worst person in the world. Trier's been making movies for 20 years, but that film seemed to click more. It was Academy Award nominated. Renata Rensby has now been kind of like integrated into the Hollywood system. And then also the film also stars Stellan Skarsgrd and Elle Fanning, two very familiar faces to us movie fans. Also Inga Ib's daughter Lilias, who is the sister character to Renata Rensvi's character. And Anders Danielson Lee also appears in the film. He appears in almost every movie that Trier makes. So the story of this movie is after the death of their mother, Cecil sisters Nora and Agnes are forced to confront their father, Gustav, who is a once famous filmmaker who's been kind of estranged over a period of time. Nora is an actress, Agnes is a researcher. They have a complex relationship as sisters. They have a complex relationship to their father. And then the film uses the home that they grew up in. Which then is now empty after their mother has passed away as a kind of portal into their family history. So much like the Worst Person in the World. This is like a very montage driven, very literary portrayal of a few people in crisis as opposed to a single person in crisis. Like Worst Person in the World was like one woman's Saturn's return going crazy for two and a half hours. And this is sort of like if everyone was all having their Saturn Returns at the same time.

[Amanda Davis]

I'm am really moved that you're using Saturn Return.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think that's what it is.

[Amanda Davis]

It is. But I didn't know you. Once again, I didn't know that's the Internet you were on.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, I have a lot of depth, so I love the Worst Person in the World. I really like Trier's movies. I don't love all of the films that came before this. He did this Oslo trilogy. The Worst Person was the final film in that group. But this is one of my favorite movies of the year. I was completely knocked out by it emotionally. I think there's like a discovery as an actor here. There's like an actor that I've always loved in Stellan Skarsgrd, I think, doing like, some of his best work. It has been interesting, though, to watch and I eagerly await your thoughts on it. A mixed response in the last couple of months.

[Amanda Davis]

This won the. What is the name of the second prize at Cannes Grand Prix? The Grand Prix at Cannes. And was immediately identified at out of Cannes as one of the big awards contenders, I think in a large part because of Worst Person in the World's, you know, success here in the US and then you, I believe, saw it this summer and you texted me, sentimental Value will win Best Picture.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. Before I had seen one Battle.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes, exactly. But so I remember that text message very much. I absolutely loved Worst Person in the World. So I think that was my favorite movie of. Of that year.

[Sean Fennessy]

When I saw that movie, I thought of you the whole time. Yeah, I was like, this is such an Amanda movie.

[Amanda Davis]

To me, it was electric. So all this to say my expectations were incredibly high and I saw it much later than everyone else. And I think that the most responsible way that I can put this is that this is the aftersun annual I'm Dead Inside award for the film. I just didn't. That I admired and I think is structurally and intellectually very sound. Incredible performances, like everything is there and I just didn't connect to it. Like, I just didn't. I understand why other people did But I, like. I feel like a little outside, like, left at, like, what am I missing? I've seen it twice because I was so confused the first time.

[Sean Fennessy]

Interesting.

[Amanda Davis]

I think some of that is because of the subject matter. And I think that this is a film about family relationships and making art, and also about depressed characters, about multiple depressed characters and how they express it over time.

[Sean Fennessy]

It is very much the cycle of depression through families.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes. But a lot of it is centered in Nora, the Renata Rensvi character who is playing. I mean, it's a very, very honest representation of depression, but it is like. It's durational.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's cinematic inertion. Yeah, yeah. Because she's not talking and she's feeling pain quietly.

[Amanda Davis]

And so. And it communicates the inability to connect. And at some points I've wondered, is my inability to connect with this, like, part of the point? Because that is what it feels like to be depressed. And I would know because I've been there, so. But it's still also a film, and so you're trying to invest in their protagonists, and I couldn't quite get there. And then there are so many other things going on around it that I never knew what I was supposed to latch onto. And there was nothing to latch onto. And that is, again, a great definition of depression, but tricky as a movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

Can I tell you what I latched onto?

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

This was even more acute the second time that I saw the movie, because when I sat down to watch it the first time, I was going in expecting Renata Renzvi, our new Meryl Streep. This will be her centerpiece performance. It will be an even bigger film than the last film. You have to see this because of what she does in this movie.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And she's not given a lot. She's given a lot to do in that very first sequence that we see her where she has stage fright, and then after that, she kind of recedes within the movie and she has a couple of confrontations with her dad. But it's not as explosive as you expect it to be. And in fact, her sister and her father are the ones who get more to play in the movie. But a constant conversation between my wife and I in our life is, what does our daughter have that comes from her and what comes from me? And what is a trait that I have and what is a trait that my wife has? And the way that you pass things down to your kids. And in this movie, Nora and Gustav, the father and the daughter are very similar. And it can be Beautiful to be very similar to one of your parents. And it can be really challenging to be similar to one of your parents. And they're like two magnets and they repel each other. They can't connect. And so because we don't get any scenes, really, if Stellan Skarsgard and. And Renata Rensvi connecting and making sparks, it feels like anti cinematic. But I feel like it's very true to what it's like to be in a family. And I have these relationships with people in my family, so you don't get some of the things that you. There's a real lack of catharsis in this movie at times where you're looking for it. But that felt like a very honest representation to me of what it's like to be close but apart from somebody that you care about. And the Gustav character, I think maybe just for me specifically, is just kind of a catnip guy. He's like a distant father who's a filmmaker. So all of his concerns, all of his egotism, all of his creativity, all of his nostalgia and longing, all of his sense of self, that's just a. That's a rich character for me. I'm just into that. I love directors. I've interviewed hundreds of directors on this podcast because I think they're so interesting. They're these, like, domineering figures who are also so sensitive and wounded and really want to be understood. It's a really unusual personality type. And it's not just men. The female filmmakers are like that too. But especially an older male director is a rich character to me. And Trier is a guy who's from a long line of filmmakers in Norway. His grandfather was a filmmaker, his father was a sound designer. He's a director. This feels like a very true representation of those kinds of guys.

[Amanda Davis]

So I think there's also. And you're saying it's purposeful and creating a. That is the intent to create the feeling, like the disjointedness. But there are several different movies in this film, and so you can really see that the Stellan Skarsgrd character and his adventures with the Elle Fanning character, who is playing an American movie star who comes to Gustav's work at the.

[Sean Fennessy]

Deauville Film Festival, which I would love to visit.

[Amanda Davis]

As would I. Deauville.

[Sean Fennessy]

Deauville. Deauville.

[Amanda Davis]

I think Deauville. Okay. And she is at the height of, or, you know, ascendant in Hollywood and sees his film and wants to work with him. And so he gets slurped into the Hollywood machine for a bit, and it doesn't really pan out, and the whole process is played. She's, like, very responsible about the whole thing. All the people around her are hilarious. Including the tall man who played Chevy Chase.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davis]

What's his name?

[Sean Fennessy]

Corey Smith.

[Amanda Davis]

Right. And, you know, she has a team that are just always on their phones, all surrounding her as she tries to have an artistic connection with this person.

[Sean Fennessy]

This movie's a bit unsparing about Hollywood and Netflix. Yes.

[Amanda Davis]

And so it did feel like that was written from his experience. That was all very knowing and very funny and very sharp. But then how it connects to the Nora, the Renata Rensvie character. By the way, it was, like, not lost in me that her name was Nora. You know, I'm like, hello, that's from A Doll's House, which is an Ibsen play and one of the great female characters in the theatrical tradition. But I guess it's not supposed to connect until the end, but it really doesn't connect. So until the end, do Stellan Skarsgard's Hollywood adventures and, you know, Nora and Renata Renzvi not being able to go on stage.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, I think I understood it much more the second time, but I felt like I understood it the first time, too, which is just like the failures of the Gustav character and his desire to reconnect and her unwillingness to reconnect lead him on this journey of trying to replace the feeling of having a daughter, and he can't. And I thought that the first of all, the first time I watched it, I thought EL Fanning was a little out of place in this movie. And then the second time I watched it, I thought she was one of the best parts about the movie.

[Amanda Davis]

Oh, interesting.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I think she's given a really hard job here with this part because she. 9 times out of 10, this character is written as, like, flip and uninteresting and unintelligent and just like a vacuous Hollywood vessel.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I think she's really trying to. They're trying to write her, and she's trying to portray a really sincere person who's trying to do better work, and she's been cast into this impossible situation where she's not the filmmaker's daughter and she's not the filmmaker's mother, and the filmmaker is trying to reckon with all of these feelings that he has about this long history that he would never know how to talk to his family about, but that he can only work through in his art about the way that these people are trapped by their own despair. And Elle Fanning is like doing everything she can as an artist to try to meet the moment she's got.

[Amanda Davis]

You mean Elle Fanning's character?

[Sean Fennessy]

Elle Fanning's character?

[Amanda Davis]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

She's trying to sound more like a Norwegian. She's trying to look more like his daughter. Yeah, she's trying to live inside the experience of this home and try to basically go to like one of the darkest stories you'll ever see in a movie. Just a very Bergman esque, like, you know, a despairing mother who commits suicide. And then like, apparently that's the end of the film. That's. That's a lot of weight to put on a character and she can't get there and the movie shows them. I think that scene is really beautiful.

[Amanda Davis]

Where she comes back and he says, you could have just gone through agents. But no, I do as well.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I think, I think there's like a radical empathy thing that is corny, but I think actually really works in his movies. And I know that some people are just gonna reject it and not like it, but I just feel like it does feel sincere to me.

[Amanda Davis]

I completely agree. And you know, it's like I like both of those performances and I like that storyline. And there's also a part when Stellan Skarsgrd is trying to make the film and he goes to meet his old editor, I believe his old cinematographer, he's old cinematographer Peter. And it's about, you know, like, oh, we can just pick up right where we left off, but time comes for us all. And also his. Him confronting like his own loyalty versus his aspirations. Yeah, like, it's great. And I also, I don't mean to dismiss the Nora plotline where like all of her stage fright, which is, you know, very obvious psychological stuff, just manifesting, is bizarre and riveting and memorable. And she's very, very good. And I understand intellectually how they're connected, but I think the only time I felt anything emotionally, there were two scenes, which is one with the other daughter. Agnes tells her father, Gustav, that she doesn't want her son to be in the film because of the same experience she had being in one of Gustav's films as a child. And this actress, who is new to me, Lights out. Amazing throughout. Also looks so much like our friend Carrie. I was like, I had to see it twice because the first time I was just like, this is really weird. They found Norwegian Carrie.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's funny.

[Amanda Davis]

But she. And I think her character is supposed to be the one who can synthesize emotion. And at the end she also synthesizes emotion to. She acts as a conduit between these two characters. So I get it. But that means that you only really feel emotion when you have her and. Or when they're talking about the house. This is a fantastic house movie. And I think some of it is that the film opens with from the house's perspective.

[Sean Fennessy]

We didn't talk about this when we talked about Train Dreams, but this movie and Train Dreams use the same tool, which is a narrator, in an attempt to be even more literary, to kind of grace us with context for what's happening with these characters. The key character that the narrator shares with us, especially the beginning of Sentimental Value, is the house that you're talking about. Where we learn about kind of its lifespan, what it has lived through, what the family has lived through in this home when they were in, when they were out, when someone came in to take care of it, when they returned to it. I can see why people would not like that. That there is like a pretentiousness potentially into the way that that's delivered. That didn't bother you?

[Amanda Davis]

No, no. I mean, the only issue is that the film starts that way and it's so tight and so has such a point of view and evokes emotions and sets the scene. And then I think the rest of the film becomes a bit more distant until you get one more shot of the home where like to me the most emotional part of this film was a late in life shot of the home.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Davis]

I don't know what that says about me.

[Sean Fennessy]

Not Inga Ibstader, like losing it in front of her father about. After they had that experience making the movie together. And then.

[Amanda Davis]

No, I don't know. I mean, like, I thought that was really good. But this structure is.

[Sean Fennessy]

You are dead inside.

[Amanda Davis]

Well, I said that I was. That's the name of the award, you know, it's a good award. And listen, also Aftersun, also a film about parents and depression.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yep.

[Amanda Davis]

And I think communicates the experience and amazing performances formally, like interesting and playing with those ideas as well. And I.

[Sean Fennessy]

They're similar.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. But there is like a. Just a connectedness that I. I know I've said that 45 times, but I feel on the outside you may not.

[Sean Fennessy]

Know this yet, because I don't think you've seen the film, but we will be talking about After Son again because of a choice made in a movie that is coming out in December.

[Amanda Davis]

I mean, I have seen. Well, I don't know which film, but now that I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about the shot in Sentimental Value, where it's the three faces and they're going round, which is not similar to the end of the Afterset.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's not what I'm referring to.

[Amanda Davis]

Is it another Paul Mescal film?

[Sean Fennessy]

No.

[Amanda Davis]

Oh, interesting.

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't want to spoil it for you.

[Amanda Davis]

All right.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's probably good because I think we're recording.

[Amanda Davis]

I know what movie you're talking about now. People gotta just really keep their display tighter because I know now, and it's been spoiled for me.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm sorry to hear that.

[Amanda Davis]

It's okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think it's probably good that we're representing the two sides of the coin in terms of how this movie will be received. Cause I think some people will be like, this didn't really do too much for me, but I do respect it. And some people will say, this kind of moved me to tears. I think I really like what Trier does formally, too. I think his use of montage, his sense of disorienting where you are in the story at any given time, his ease and comfort moving back and forth between the past and the present day. And then there's a very clever reveal at the end of the film in terms of what is being displayed. I think he's got real moves, like. I just think he's a really interesting designer of movies, you know? And it's been so interesting watching a lot of critics that I really respect be like, I didn't buy this at all. And I get. You know, it's just. It's obviously a completely subjective experience, but he is trying to do something that is super sincere. And that sincerity can sometimes really bump up against people, too, as being just like a little bit too much, a little bit too cute, a little bit too.

[Amanda Davis]

But I would also say, say that there's a real distance to the sincerity that it doesn't. You know, you can feel both of those things, but you like to have it, you know, far away from you.

[Sean Fennessy]

But you always frame me as that way. But I know, and I love a really sincere movie.

[Amanda Davis]

I mean, so do I. Like the right kind of. I mean, it's a great title for a movie sentiment. Like, I actually will buy into sentimentality more than you will. And I think that this has none. And I mean, it's. Which is the point, right? Like, it is the thing.

[Sean Fennessy]

So this stuff is sincere, but it is. It's meant to be missing the kind of Gloppiness that comes with sentimentality. Now, as I said, I've seen some critics say, like it's actually working against itself, that by trying to reveal that there is like a hard truth underneath the performance of family or love or whatever, that it's actually exposing that there's like artifice in this creation. I don't see it that way, but I do respect it. I did think a bit the second time I saw it of the royal Tenenbaums. I do think that it actually has a lot in common with that movie.

[Amanda Davis]

The narration. And starting with the house and where everyone is in the house, strong patriarch.

[Sean Fennessy]

Comes back into the family. A family of artists or lost artists, people who are aspiring to be bigger.

[Amanda Davis]

Depression.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. The mental stability of the family, you know, the fact that like someone like Chaz has inherited a lot from his own father, but they can't really connect with each other. So I also think it's like pretty funny. Like there's an incredible scene where Gustav, who's reconnected with his family, comes to see his grandson on his eighth birthday and he gives him a birthday present and you know, we love to see it. He gives him physical media, gives him the Piano Teacher, an irreversible on dvd, really funny, which is just great stuff for an eight year old. And it is a movie about like reconciliation, which is hard. But also I feel this very much in my own life. Once I had a kid, I just have immediate empathy for my parents and I just understand my parents a lot better. I understand why they did what they did to survive. I understand why they. It doesn't mean that everything is forgiven or everything is accepted, but I understand. And it's funny.

[Amanda Davis]

I don't at all opposite direction. But that's. That's fascinating. Well, but that's.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's so you.

[Amanda Davis]

I just. I think mistakes were made. Well, of course, of course.

[Sean Fennessy]

But the circumstances under which they transpired matter. They matter. Think about how you felt when things were hard.

[Amanda Davis]

Well, we don't need to get into it. This is not my therapy session.

[Sean Fennessy]

But I think it's the fact that it wants to confront you with those ideas though I think is to its credit and I'm kind of curious about how this movie goes through the world. Yeah, it is, I think been the highest grossing per screen release of the year. And it's limited release. It does seem like it is connected. It feels like one of the very few art house movies where it has strong word of mouth. You know, the Angelica theaters of the world are like we love this movie. Right? The kind of the more informed cinephile cineists are checking it out. You know, I don't think it's going to make $100 million or anything, but it's going to be present in our lives over the next few months.

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[Sean Fennessy]

Let's talk quickly about the Oscars around it. Unless there's anything else you want to say about the film, you can listen to me talk with them. Joachim as well. He spoke in great detail about the making of the movie, but we'll get into all the Best picture stuff soon. It's definitely gonna be nominated for best Picture. I would be stunned if it was not nominated for Best Picture Actress.

[Amanda Davis]

Everyone's been holding a spot. It is a good performance, but again, sort of the by definition the black hole at the center of the film because that is what she's trying to represent. So I don't know. I think it's there are 10 spots in best Picture and Five spots in best Actress, so you could see it going a little to the wayside.

[Sean Fennessy]

There are two contenders for a supporting actress. You've got Elle Fanning and Inga Ipstadter. Lilias. Inga Lilius Ipstadter. I want to make sure that.

[Amanda Davis]

No Inga Ipstadter. Lilius.

[Sean Fennessy]

Either. Neither.

[Amanda Davis]

I think it would be Inge Ipstadter. Lilia. I know Elle Fanning's having like a. You know, she's in Predator. She's in something else.

[Sean Fennessy]

Will you watch Predator Badlands?

[Amanda Davis]

I listen to most of you guys talking about it on the podcast. My tradition is to enjoy the Predator films as acted out by Chris Ryan. So I respect her and salute Elle Fanning and all that she's doing. What's the third thing that I'm not thinking? The Hunger Games trailer.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's right.

[Amanda Davis]

Everyone, I'm very sorry. Lenny Kravitz was the stylist in the Hunger Games, but he made such. I know I fucked up. I'm really sorry.

[Sean Fennessy]

You were so confident, too.

[Amanda Davis]

I know. Because I remembered the stylist being so key. I think his name is Sina with a C. And I didn't Google that. So I fucked up. But also, like, it did stay with me.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. And made this feeling stay with you. Of being incorrect.

[Amanda Davis]

When you're wrong, you're wrong. And you got to own it.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's right. You got to own it.

[Amanda Davis]

Here I am absolutely fucked up.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Let's talk about supporting actor. Yeah. Because this is very. This is probably the place where this movie gets recognized. Now, Stellan Skarsgrd, I think you could make the case as the lead of this film.

[Amanda Davis]

I do as well. I think you just made the case that what you responded to in this film was Stellan Scarlet Sky.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, he gets the most depth. You know he gets. Or at least if Renata Rensvie doesn't have as much dialogue because of what her character is enduring, he gets to explore the most about his life and how he sees the world and his relationships through a number of different ways. He's being pitched as the supporting actor maybe because they think he has just a better chance to win, I think, at the European Film Awards, he was nominated for best lead, which should tell you something. So supporting actor. This year, I'm gonna give you some names.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. This is again coming from Variety. Andrew Scott for Blue Moon.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Billy Crudup for J. Kelly Rising in people's minds.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Delroy Lindo in Sinners. William H. Macy in Train Dreams. Adam Sandler in Jay Kelly. And then the top five here. Jacob Elordi in Frankenstein. Paul Mescal and Hamnet. Benicio Del Toro in one battle after another. Sean Penn in one battle after another. And sitting in first place is Stellan Skarsgrd.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, I think Stellan Benicio and Sean Penn are locks. Maybe not locks, but they feel tight.

[Sean Fennessy]

So what do you think of the last two? If you had to guess who did.

[Amanda Davis]

Who is 4 and 5 on the variety list right now?

[Sean Fennessy]

Mescal and Elordi.

[Amanda Davis]

Elordi seems rising, especially as Frankenstein just kind of locks in. And that is what people are responding to. And he's just. I mean, he's great for award season. I'm obviously biased. So are you now.

[Sean Fennessy]

We sat together in a movie. Mm.

[Amanda Davis]

Uh, let's see.

[Sean Fennessy]

My little sister Grace could not have been more excited about that news. I mean, I was so fired up.

[Amanda Davis]

She was so excited. And I was, like, trying to rein it in. I just. I really understand what everyone.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's very tall.

[Amanda Davis]

He's.

[Sean Fennessy]

I.

[Amanda Davis]

Listen, don't have to tell me.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm kind of tall. He was very tall.

[Amanda Davis]

He's very tall. The Hamnet thing, I guess you gotta.

[Sean Fennessy]

Get your head around it. No, I know.

[Amanda Davis]

I know it's happening. No, I totally know it's happening. And it's happening more and more and more. And so I think that it's strong enough that that probably brings Mescaline as well. So I think so.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm not totally sure. You know, I thought very certain that Sandler would be nominated after seeing J. Kelly. And now I'm seeing people say, like, oh, actually, I like Billy. Billy Crota basically has one scene in that movie, and we'll talk about it in a couple of weeks. But it's a very memorable scene. And he's always great.

[Amanda Davis]

In Venice, everyone started applauding during that scene. During that scene. And it was otherwise in that theater.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's so interesting. Yeah, I know. And people love him. And he's been working for 30 years. Yeah, that's. I think that would be a bit of a crime against Sandler, and I think that's a tough part that he had. But we can talk about it when we get there. William H. Macy and Delroy Lindo and Andrew Scott I don't think is happening. So maybe it's the two guys from Jay Kelly, the two guys from One Battle, Meskel Elordi and Skarsgrd in a knife fight. Skarsgrd being the leader is interesting. It would be a good win. It Would be kind of in its time win somebody who's contributed a lot to films over the years.

[Amanda Davis]

He's like, really leaning into it, you know, and like the real life film patriarch. And, you know, Alex Alexander is like out on the trail sort of for pillion and.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davis]

And sort of, you know, part of the Skarsgrd family.

[Sean Fennessy]

He saw it for the first time at Telluride and he was, like, blown away by it. And also, you know, it's a movie about, like, kind of an absent father who's working in the film industry. Other nomination potentials. I mean, I really think best director's in play. Screenplay, original screenplay, definitely in play. International feature, definitely in play. I mean, this is like also neon. Having every international feature nominee is going to be utterly bizarre. But that's very much in play. We'll have to do. I was thinking about how we probably need to do like an international feature episode and a documentary feature segments in January so we can plot that out too. Which takes us to best picture. So let's talk about the rankings. I think a lot has changed.

[Amanda Davis]

I do as well.

[Sean Fennessy]

Last time we did this, I felt like not much had changed. And now it's been 30 days.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Last time we went begonia at 10, J. Kelly at nine. It was just an accident at eight. Marty supreme at seven, wicked for good at six, Frankenstein at five. Sentimental value at four, sinners at three, hamnet at two. One battle at one.

[Amanda Davis]

I think our top five could stay the same. If you want to, like, switch sinners.

[Sean Fennessy]

And hamnet, I think Marty's going to five. Oh.

[Amanda Davis]

Even over Frankenstein.

[Sean Fennessy]

A ton of people have seen it now and everybody loves it. I haven't talked to a person like it.

[Amanda Davis]

And like the Timmy. The campaign thing is Marty might be.

[Sean Fennessy]

Marty might be a four.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay. I mean, I love it. Like, give me a jacket. A 24. Josh. Timothy doesn't know who I am and we'll never see this. But, like, I will wear it for the Marty supreme episode. And for like, I like. Let's guarantee like five wears before Oscar.

[Sean Fennessy]

Five wears? Yeah, just like out and about. I mean, like, like, as a Marty influencer, you'll wear five times on the show just to get a jacket. That's a lot.

[Amanda Davis]

But think of your.

[Sean Fennessy]

What is your self worth?

[Amanda Davis]

I know, but like, wardrobe is like getting really annoying. So if I could just get through, I'd like the blue.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do what I do, which is just get a dark sweater and just wear variations all the time.

[Amanda Davis]

I don't have dark sweaters. I Have to coordinate with you and the set design about, like, who's wearing navy on any given day.

[Sean Fennessy]

We have 300 people here working on set design.

[Amanda Davis]

So I. I would welcome a jacket. I don't want pink. I don't think pink is my color. I thought it looked great on Timmy. I would prefer the blue.

[Sean Fennessy]

If you have black, I'll take a black.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay. But I'll wear it like I'm in.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Davis]

I like this film. I liked this film before the jacket came out. So you're not buying me.

[Sean Fennessy]

Can we go to. Can we continue in another direction?

[Amanda Davis]

I wanted to talk about it being powerful.

[Sean Fennessy]

And number four, I think the marketing's been very good. And they have kind of gotten a lot of people. There have been many screenings in LA and New York in the last six weeks or so since the New York Film Festival premiere. And it's working. The same feeling that you had the day after. I saw it where we were both like, whoa, this is really fun. Like, this is a really good and exciting and energetic. And Timmy living up to the thing that we want from him. So I will say they should send.

[Amanda Davis]

Me a jacket and you a ping pong head. And you just wear a ping pong ball head for an entire.

[Sean Fennessy]

I do not agree to do that. Do you have any. Do you see anything changing about one battle? Hamnet and sinners in the order in which we have them? Spielberg just hosted a hamnet screening.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And people loved it. Sinners. There's a lot of, like, if you forget about sinners, I will kill you on social media right now. So there's that energy going on. Brian Coogler just got his star on the Walk of Fame.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. I spent at least 10 minutes last night trying to figure out how much time Hailee Steinfeld spills in Buffalo every year because the Bills were playing.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. It'd been a tough. Been a tough season for the Bills.

[Amanda Davis]

I know. And she. She hangs back. I did learn that there's an Italian restaurant in Buffalo that they like to go to. That's what Josh says.

[Sean Fennessy]

One Italian restaurant before.

[Amanda Davis]

That's sort of their pre grain ritual, which would suggest. And they were photographed in downtown Buffalo once this summer. That's all I was able to learn about Haley Steinfeld.

[Sean Fennessy]

I have nothing bad to say about Buffalo. I've never visited. It is, of course, my home state of New York. They are by far the best football team in the state of New York. Like, bar none. So I hope Josh Allen is fine. I have nothing bad to say about him. He's an amazing football player. Hailee Steinfeld says things in Sinners. It blew my mind.

[Amanda Davis]

I thought she was fantastic. So Oscars are March. So he would be on the off season. He would be able to go to the Oscars.

[Sean Fennessy]

He will be there.

[Amanda Davis]

You think so?

[Sean Fennessy]

I'll bet a million dollars he'll be at the Oscars.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay, good for him.

[Sean Fennessy]

You don't want to take that bet?

[Amanda Davis]

No, I don't.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Davis]

Remember when I offered you a million dollars to be able to name Tom Wilkinson in the 2016 film the Choice?

[Sean Fennessy]

Wait, it was 2016? I thought it was 2006.

[Amanda Davis]

No, 2016. 10 years.

[Sean Fennessy]

I've literally never heard of that. You told the entire plot. Okay, so do you want to keep one battle, Hamnet, Sinners, and then Marty, in that order?

[Amanda Davis]

I mean, do you want to do.

[Sean Fennessy]

Let's pull back for a second. Is there any chance in your heart of hearts. Let's fucking get into it. Okay, let's do it. Amanda.

[Amanda Davis]

So hot.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is anything going to beat one battle after another? Or is this just going to be the same conversation between you and I.

[Amanda Davis]

For four months and then it wins everything?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davis]

I mean, the Hammer thing's real. It's not out yet. So we can't really do the thing yet that we're supposed to do. And I suppose now I have to go see Hamnet again.

[Sean Fennessy]

I do, too. I haven't seen it in months now, so that movie comes out in limited release on November 26, but we're not gonna talk about it on the show till wide. So it's gonna be a little while before we actually get into it. Yeah, I liked it with notes. You had different thoughts.

[Amanda Davis]

I was very mixed on it. And the things about it that worked really worked for me. I was blown away by them. And the things that didn't work, I remain really frustrated by.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, well, we'll get through that. I wonder how many people will feel the way that you do. I feel that both that film and sentimental value both have a lot of like, are we sure that this is totally working? And that makes it just a little weaker for those two movies, I guess Sinners has. There's no perfect film this year. The one battle thing most closely fits the like. Let's just anoint. You know, it's time to anoint. So I haven't really been moved off of that yet. Marty is really interesting. Cause it's getting a lot of positive response. But Josh is so early in his career that I think it's gonna be really hard even if that film ends up becoming like a box office hit and beloved, which it could, that could happen. It's still gonna be really hard to get it.

[Amanda Davis]

Cause he's so young. He's turning 30 two days after the release of this film.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, if I had to give the award to somebody this year, I'd give it to him.

[Amanda Davis]

I'm also available for his 30th birthday party just to let.

[Sean Fennessy]

Available to do what? Just to be there to attend.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, what if you were asked to do a live pod from the event? Would you do it? Live jam session from Timmy's party 1000. Do you think they would want you to do that?

[Amanda Davis]

No, I don't. But like, if he asks, why do.

[Sean Fennessy]

You want to go to the birthday parties of these 30 somethings? Why is that?

[Amanda Davis]

Because I want to have fun. I don't have enough fun in my life. You know, I see it.

[Sean Fennessy]

I feel that you have a panic about the loss of fun.

[Amanda Davis]

It's not that I have a panic. This isn't existential. This isn't like, oh, I've made the wrong choices.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, I didn't say that. I didn't say that.

[Amanda Davis]

This isn't like, you know me, some like self anthologizing thing. It's like, I just want to go take a tequila shot and dance to Nelly. You know, like, let's just do it. I will bum a cigarette off someone at 11:00pm Like, I just, I want to go have fun.

[Sean Fennessy]

Remember when I used to say that the CR heads was like 3,000 single guys, like crying, masturbating to Chris, doing voices. There definitely is like a dob mob, like 3,000 dob mob girlies, like at home quietly masturbating. Every time you're like, I just want to drink tequila and dance to Nelly. That's your contention. Well, Maybe, maybe it's 300 million.

[Amanda Davis]

It's good to know what you want. It's good to be able to articulate it. I've found that in life.

[Sean Fennessy]

Uh, let's try to finish this list, Jack, if you're listening. One battle at one, Hamnet at two, Sinners at three.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Marty supreme at four.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, I think Frankenstein.

[Sean Fennessy]

Frankenstein at five. And sentimental value at six.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Now here's where it gets messy. I'm gonna. I think Wicked for good is off.

[Amanda Davis]

I do as well.

[Sean Fennessy]

We could live to regret that and we might just put it back on in a month.

[Amanda Davis]

Will we regret it or will we just reflect? Be like we were reflecting the moment that we were living in that's all I can do is be a mirror, you know?

[Sean Fennessy]

Absolutely. That's what many people are saying about you. Someone who has no strong feelings whatsoever. You merely are a portal to other people's feelings. Some people are saying that there can only be one big box office movie on this list. I guess you could say Sinners is a big box office movie. But Wicked for good and Avatar, Fire and Ash operate in a big blockbuster zone.

[Amanda Davis]

I have floated that. I think it's going to be that. I think the Academy is unlikely to do both of those for the same reasons.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do you think Avatar goes into that spot? We haven't seen it yet. We see it in 10 days.

[Amanda Davis]

It's. That's going to be December 1st. It's going to be one of the most incredible days. We probably should tell people we're good. So on December 1st, I am so excited to announce that Sean, Chris Ryan and I will be hosting. Are we going live?

[Sean Fennessy]

No.

[Amanda Davis]

So we're just. We're recording a watch along of the Way of Water.

[Sean Fennessy]

Right.

[Amanda Davis]

Chris Ryan will or will not have seen the original Avatar. I don't know. I'm not gonna arrange that. He can make his own decisions. So we'll be doing that for three hours or whatever and then we will be driving. I hope you're going.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm going to Burbank.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, to Burbank to see Avatar, Fire and Ash the same day because that is when the screening is available. So that is going to be at.

[Sean Fennessy]

Least six hours, nearly seven hours of Avatar. Now here's the thing that's kind of smart. Well, we're going to be really up to speed on where the story left off.

[Amanda Davis]

Right. Should we just then record the episode that week before things get really dicey?

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, that's a good point. Maybe we should.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm very excited about Fire and Ash. I think Fire and Ash we can put at eight.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay. And Wicked out. Yeah. Vibes are very bad. Ariana Grande has Covid, apparently.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, that's too bad.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. I mean, it just. It seems. It seems like it's been a bubble.

[Sean Fennessy]

I do think it's going to do well at the box office. Now here's a bigger question.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Are Begonia and J. Kelly out right now?

[Amanda Davis]

Sue, you would toss them out before. It was just an accident.

[Sean Fennessy]

I. Yes, and I won't. I'd like to hear your line of thought about that.

[Amanda Davis]

Well, you know, I think I said to you I did see, it was just an accident, which I thought was exceptional and also did not Scream like pop, international feature, crossover, best picture, hit, kind of in the same way that you saw no Other Choice, and we're like, yeah, this is really great. No Other Choice is obviously, you know, the latest from one of our great living filmmaker is not that Jafar Panahy is also not. But it was just an accident. Is getting like the Palme d' or spot here, which in the last few years has become a transfer. But I am just sort of. All of the international features seem a little bit softer this year in terms of, well, everyone is now catching up to the festivals and being like, well, actually, I don't know. Or I liked this. Or there's no Anatomy of a Fall, as you keep.

[Sean Fennessy]

There's no Anatomy of a Fall, but I think so let's just talk about what the. What that combination of films is. So the Secret Agent. Yeah, it was just an Accident. And Sentimental Value are all Cannes films. They're all going to be out for international feature. You know, you've got to remember that I'm Still Here, which was a much more conventional film than either of those three, but that did slot in late in the period last year. The Brazil contingent is strong, whatever that means. The Secret Agent is very unusual. More unusual than It Was Just An Accident, which to me is probably the most conventional movie in Panahi's career. Panahi, who has been, you know, under house arrest over periods of time, who has been like, kind of fucking with the form of what is a movie. He literally made a film called this Is Not a Film. He has been exploring what he can accomplish while making films in secret. This film was also made in secret, but has a much more traditional structure in terms of being a thriller. But it is also a very contemporary movie about living under a fascist regime that I think is going to resonate very deeply with a lot of voters around the world. I think it's like in a lock, personally, because Panahi has been in the United States for a long time now. He was in the studio. He'll be on the show in December, which is awesome.

[Amanda Davis]

I'm not saying I didn't like it.

[Sean Fennessy]

For his film, too.

[Amanda Davis]

The only other thing is that that film has been available for a here in the U.S. i mean, it's a limited release.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. It hasn't made a lot of money.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. And it just doesn't feel like as many people has seen it.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think it's really more about the absence of other films that can go in now. If you want to say we'll take it off. We can take it off. No, no, no, no.

[Amanda Davis]

I just wanted to have the conversation.

[Sean Fennessy]

Let's do the exercise. Let's take off. It was just an accident. J. Kelly and Begonia. What three would you put in its place? Because Avatar is taking the Wicked spot.

[Amanda Davis]

Right. Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Are there three other movies that could go in there that you see happening? I think that's very, very plausible.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

That to me is going in the J. Kelly spot.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay. So that's at number nine.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yep.

[Amanda Davis]

And that is also trading a Netflix film for a Netflix film.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yep. Now, what else?

[Amanda Davis]

Okay, so the other things you have listed here as possibilities. Wake Up Dead man and Knives Out Mystery. I don't think that that will be a best picture. No other choice. I don't think so. Even though I really liked it. Rental Family. Still haven't seen.

[Sean Fennessy]

I haven't seen it either. That's one of my big gaps.

[Amanda Davis]

So we've got all the Searchlights right here. We've got Rental Family, We've got Springsteen Delivering Me From Nowhere, which is absolutely not. And the Testament of Anley, which is my pet favorite.

[Sean Fennessy]

And Is this Thing On? Is also Searchlight.

[Amanda Davis]

Is this Thing on which I also still haven't seen.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davis]

But Bradley Cooper went to the Eagles game instead of the Governor's Awards, so I don't know what he thinks it's gonna happen.

[Sean Fennessy]

So Searchlight almost always gets a movie in.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Are one of these four movies going in now? I have seen. Is this Thing On?

[Amanda Davis]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

I have a lot of strong feelings about it. I mean, I'll save them for the episode. I don't think it's going in.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay. Oh, okay. I mean, you and Bradley Cooper clearly don't so.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, he loves football and so do I.

[Amanda Davis]

He does.

[Sean Fennessy]

Listen, if my team was as good as the Jets, I would be going to the jets games.

[Amanda Davis]

You meant as good as the.

[Sean Fennessy]

Sorry. If my team was as good as the Eagles, because the jets are.

[Amanda Davis]

I recently learned that the jets are 2 and 8 as of this recording. I don't know what's happening this weekend.

[Sean Fennessy]

They're 2 and 8. They're 15 point underdogs to the Baltimore Ravens. We're recording this before that game?

[Amanda Davis]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm going to make a prediction here on the pod. We'll hear it on Monday. I think they will lose by fewer than seven points.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay. That's riveting stuff. I can't wait to find out.

[Sean Fennessy]

Testament of Enlightened is too weird.

[Amanda Davis]

I agree. No, I agree. I agree. It's cool. I hope it happens. Cool.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davis]

Like, it's cool. I'm glad it got picked up.

[Sean Fennessy]

Springsteen has no chance. Rental Family is really soft. Searchlight. Not having a movie is kind of fascinating. I think that that is really a product of there being two big, fat Warner Brothers movies in here. And they're kind of taking a searchlight spot. And if Avatar gets in, then you get a Disney movie.

[Amanda Davis]

So what's left? You have Song Sung Blue here. We haven't seen it. It will definitely get a Golden Globe, you know, But I think that this.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is my point about taking. It was just an accident off. It's like, there's not enough movies to go in.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay, then put it in. Put it in.

[Sean Fennessy]

Would you say. Would you. You haven't seen the Secret Agent yet?

[Amanda Davis]

No.

[Sean Fennessy]

So it's hard to say, but Brazil is powerful.

[Amanda Davis]

I've learned never to underestimate.

[Sean Fennessy]

Going into this episode, my thinking was that the Secret agent is at 10, and it was just an accident.

[Amanda Davis]

I think that that is smart based on what we know, using our knowledge.

[Sean Fennessy]

Now, that would be three international films, and that would be no. Searchlight 1, Focus 1, A24, 2 Neon, 2, Warners, 2, Netflix. Seems reasonable. Yeah, seems reasonable.

[Amanda Davis]

That's kind of how it gets parceled out.

[Sean Fennessy]

By the time we record again, we will have seen. I will have seen Rental Family Song, Song Blue. I think those are my last two movies that I haven't seen yet.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I gotta see Ellen McKay, but that's not coming up in these conversations.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. And Avatar, you have to say.

[Sean Fennessy]

And Avatar Fire.

[Amanda Davis]

And we've already explained when nobody sing that.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. So I just want to say something really quickly. This is our 13th episode this month.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

We've recorded them in 21 days. We've also done a live event. I've also done six filmmaker interviews this month because everybody's been in town for the Governor's Awards.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

We've also recorded four episodes of 25 for 25.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is the most intense month we've ever had on the show.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think we're a little overexposed. And by that, I mean I'm on camera way too much right now. But we did it.

[Amanda Davis]

We're here.

[Sean Fennessy]

We did it. We're about to have a little break here. It's well earned. How do you feel about this month?

[Amanda Davis]

I mean, I'm really psyched to have a week off to reset my brain.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know what that means for me? It's andor time.

[Amanda Davis]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Pretty fired up.

[Amanda Davis]

I think what it means for me is Zootopia. And Zootopia too. Cause I heard from. I heard from cousin Max, the cousin who went to see Lady Bird when he was 10.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davis]

And who. There's a Thanksgiving tradition.

[Sean Fennessy]

Did he like the episode?

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, he did. And he said he was gonna revisit it and see whether the movie holds up to his 10 year old standards, which was very sweet. I also reminded Max that we took him to see Creed ii and as the lights went down, he said, so what happens in Creed?

[Sean Fennessy]

I remember this.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. Max is a legend. But there's a tradition of taking the younger kids to see a movie at Thanksgiving. And now that Max is a grown up and in college, Knox is the younger kid. So I floated Zootopia and Zootopia too. Because Knox hasn't seen Zootopia, obviously.

[Sean Fennessy]

Nor have I. Zootopia is pretty funny.

[Amanda Davis]

Is that the one? That is an allegory for the Reagan administration introducing crack into. Remember the Instagram message that I got?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, that is the one. I don't think that that's the intention of the filmmakers.

[Amanda Davis]

Sure. Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

But I think that that is a reading that it can withstand.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay. Jack says yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Correct.

[Amanda Davis]

Thank you, Jack. And shout out to that. That person who dmed me.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'll also be seeing Zootopia 2 this weekend. Maybe after I see it, I'll add it to the list of best picture contenders.

[Amanda Davis]

We'll see.

[Sean Fennessy]

Anything else you want to say about all this? Why don't we just read the 10? As it stands now, I'm not sure if I feel good about this list, but we're going to do it.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Number 10 is the secret agent. Number 9 is train dreams. Number 8 is avatar fire and ash. Number 7 is it was just an accident. Number 6 is sentimental value. Number 5 is Frankenstein. Number 4 is Marty supreme. Number 3 is sinners two. Hamnet won one battle after another. I'm so excited to not talk for a while. Into a mic.

[Amanda Davis]

Same.

[Sean Fennessy]

Let's go to my conversation now with Joachim Trier. Neil Keem Trier here on the show. Wonderful film. You know, I heard you spoke in 2022 about the process of writing with your co writer Eskild Vogt. And you said you, you know, you guys get together and you talk about a lot of ideas and you talk about what's going on in your life at the time. And the Worst Person in the World came out of that. And I was wondering what was going on in your life when you guys got together to start talking about Sentimental Value.

[Joachim Trier]

Yeah, no thanks. That's Interesting. What was going on. First of all, we'd made Worst Person in the World. So, as always, you try to accept that there's a kind of an anxiety for failure in the room of creating something from scratch, like we do every time. And since the worst person had had a good ride and people had seen it and it was a film that I felt met people on the right premise, people talk back to me about it in a way where I thought, hey, you know, I think we talked about something here that was okay. Then, of course, we thought, what are people going to expect from us? And we try to get rid of those notions because it's not very creatively stimulating to work from that place of, you know, what do they expect? So what had happened was that I'd had two kids and Eskel has had children for a while. Our parents are still alive, and almost like in the old friendship that we have, we start talking about stuff from life, and then we have all these other ideas of cooler films we want to make. But then actually, how can we make it interesting and cool and specific to talk about family dynamics and stuff like that? So I think that's kind of what happened.

[Sean Fennessy]

So there is something related to that too, which is that it felt like, you know, you've been making films for a long time, but it felt like the Worst Person in the World got into the culture. More, you know, Academy Award nominations, probably more exposure to Hollywood than some of your films have gotten in the past. How much did that influence what you were writing? Cause that's a significant strain, too, of Gustav's story and Elle's character. Did that particular experience on the last film inform that strain of the movie?

[Joachim Trier]

Honestly, I don't think so. I think first film we did, Reprise, was bought by Meramax and came out. And that's almost 20 years ago, man. So after that, I had the whole ride of meeting studios and reading scripts and trying to figure out out as a young filmmaker who I was. And realizing then that even though I grew up adoring hollywood movies and still.it wasn't the place where I would feel the most free to do my thing. So I went back to Norway and made Oslo August 31st. And, you know, so I've had a bit of that. And then since then, I have friends and colleagues, and I do come out to la. I'm in LA now, and we're talking. And I do feel that there's a beautiful dialectic between American and European cinema that's always been going back and forth and all that there's not skepticism, but it's more like this. How can I make a love letter to movies through making sentimental value, but still have fun and create some humor around the fact that on one level, an American actor that Elle plays in this one is kind of an outsider. And then she comes to Norway, which I think is more unusual than maybe making a story about a director going to Hollywood.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's happened before, though.

[Joachim Trier]

There's a humor in that. You know, we thought, yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, we've had, you know, Elliot Gould worked with Bergman. Like, it did happen a couple of times. Times. It's not that common.

[Joachim Trier]

Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good film.

[Sean Fennessy]

I want to talk about Gustav and Stalin's character, and I'm curious about your specific relationship to this character. Obviously, he's a flawed person. He's a filmmaker. He's got two kids. How much of you is in him?

[Joachim Trier]

The irony is, when we wrote the film, I only had one. And then I make. This is a true story. I make a story about a difficult father and a director who I imagined while writing it most of the time was not me at all. Since he's much older generation, it's difficult. I was thinking much more about the family dynamics of the story and the characters. And then just as we finished the script, I realized we're having another child, and that turns out to be a girl, too. So Now I have two daughters who are exactly three years apart, like the sisters in the film. So 20 years from my poor daughters, everyone's going to think that this is an apology to them or something. That was not the intention. It's on the record now. It's not the intention. So, no. So to. To go back to the film, I feel it was really fun to make a film about a filmmaker and be allowed to make pieces of his movies. Like we see piece of his masterpiece from the 90s called Anna. And, you know, it's the hardest thing in the world. You, oh, we're making a film about a great painter. We have to have some great paintings, you know, and in this case, we have to have some okay pieces of film to believe he was a good director. So I was really suddenly in this position of, ooh, la la, how do I make, like, these crazy wanders? There's a scene in the film like this one shot with no cuts, on a moving train, and people are running outside the train, inside the train, there's a child who needs to cry on cue. And I really had to step up here and be a better director. So however much he's a flawed character, I really, really did my best to make him an okay director.

[Sean Fennessy]

Now you do really communicate that he had, at least he had a greatness to him at a certain time. And what you do put in that film that he directed does kind of feel like a film of that era too. I mean, were you thinking, like, were there any movies that you were thinking about when you were attempting to recapture that?

[Joachim Trier]

We were trying not to be so specific that it would be a parody or a hit job on some director or something. You know, it's more. More type of European auteur that would do oners throughout each scene and maybe have a poetic relation to the wind and the trees. A bit Eastern European influence, but. But not something completely specific. We wanted Gustavo to be his own guy.

[Sean Fennessy]

Like. I'm not going to be able to get you to name names then, I guess.

[Joachim Trier]

No, but I'll give an example. Like, for example, you know, it's obvious he's not Bergman, because Ema Bergman comes from theater and Gustav Borg does not. He's about tactility and he doesn't like the theater. He even says to his daughter the kind of difficult dad he is, and she's a stage actress, so that's a very patronizing moment. Says that. But, but, and, and he's not Jan Truell either, the great Swedish director that I adore, but Jan Truell was more about tactility and nature and. And humans almost in a Terence Maliki way, being perceived as creatures of the world, you know, so. So maybe it's more over in that corner, I don't know.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, so like you, I have a 4 year old daughter and it's an interesting ride. It is like the most beautiful, wonderful thing and it is a very emotionally dynamic. And obviously your daughter wasn't four at the time when you were making this film, but I'm curious about specifically what that unlocked or allowed you to be able to communicate since you've got Inga and Renata's characters as the center, the focal point of this story.

[Joachim Trier]

Yeah. Please forgive me for. Maybe this is a little bit of an abstract entry point into something you're asking about. But I think I want to talk about. When you look at people, developing kids, what we all come from. There is a sense that before the spoken language takes prominence, all these other modes of communications are at play. I'm sure you experienced that with your child as well, that dancing, singing, hitting things rhythmically, drawing, all that stuff just happens. It's a part of Expression, it's a part of getting into contact with the people around you. And Sounds a bit cheesy, but it's almost like we were all artists at some point before social conventions came and took us.

[Sean Fennessy]

I know exactly what you mean.

[Joachim Trier]

You know what I mean, right? And also you sing to them to make them calm and sleep, and suddenly all these creative things come into play. That has nothing to do with the business or with the function of art or any of that. It's just like being human is doing stuff like that.

[Sean Fennessy]

Right.

[Joachim Trier]

So I thought in this film where Iskel and I are talking about a creative family, not all of them, the younger sisters certainly stepped away from wanting to have anything to do with theater or movies or anything. And we can talk about that later. But for some of these characters, art making movies and theater is really important. And we were ashamed about writing that. Eskel and I, we were like, oh no, are we doing that again? But we realized that it gave us a key to talk about identity in a family and communication and lack of communication in a family, because these artistic expressions, Gustav's film that he wants to do with his daughter, or films from the past gave us an insight into the characters. And I always thought at the end of the day that this is also a film about two women who have a very difficult relation to their father, somehow coming to terms with the fact that inside that father is a wounded child. I'm sorry, you know, to say it straight. He is a man who comes from his own story and his own difficulties. And I think that's the only way to try to reach some sense of reconciliation is to see the honesty about your parents struggles. And that's a really hard place to go for most people. So when I look at the fact that Gustav as a child had a language which he certainly put into art in a beautiful way, but has no capacity to be socially available to his daughters in the social language. He's so clumsy, he says the wrong thing. He doesn't know how to be present with them. So I thought that dichotomy in life of this artist who actually seems to make really beautiful films, but has no ability to be a great dad, that interested me. So that's that wounded child that's still at play in his art somehow or something. That area interested me.

[Sean Fennessy]

There's something really metatextual about Stellan portraying this character too, because of course, he has children who are in the business, who are performers, who are artists. And so we as viewers, if we know about him, we bring that to the table. It did make me wonder though, like, how you feel about the idea of your family getting into the arts, your kids. You told me before we started recording, your father was a sound designer like you. I presume there's a history of working in the arts in your family. Like, how does that make you feel?

[Joachim Trier]

No, it's. At times it's almost been a bit embarrassing. I mean, one grandfather was a painter, the other was a filmmaker, and I'm so inbred it's ridiculous. It's so ironic, right? Like, as a creative person, it's all about autonomy and individuality. And here I am just being served up from these obvious, you know, family relations I come from. But here we are. That's what I do. I wasn't great at school. I filmed since I was a kid. I skateboarded. I filmed stuff with my friends all the way through my. From before I could write even, you know, I had Super 8 and video cameras available that I could was a privileged enough to be allowed to use. And so I'm just super grateful that I'm allowed to do this stuff. I love making movies. So it wasn't like a great plan or choice. I kind of slid into it and here we are, you know. But I also felt very comfortable on film sets as a child. The grown ups didn't seem so scary and boring. They were playing and I remember very well being on set with my dad and seeing, you know, grown men lying in the mud trying to hold some, you know, some light up as the wind was blowing while the take was rolling. And they were like down in the mud grabbing metal to try to keep it from not falling over during the shot and. And kind of no one could make a sound. It was all silent, but it was kind of crazy and fun. And I was like, wow, these people really care about getting this shot done. How fun is that? So I'm sure I was very inspired by the process.

[Sean Fennessy]

This question is a little bit of an abstraction as well. But hearing you say you were into skateboarding as a kid, thinking about Anders character from the Worst Person in the World, thinking about your early films, you feel to me like a lot of people that I'm friends with that had basically a kind of like a little slightly harder edge punk rock youth and is getting older and becoming increasingly empathetic and open hearted and trying to find a way to kind of like reconcile the ethic of the past with the present day. Like, does that feel accurate to you when I say that?

[Joachim Trier]

Yeah, if you mean by ethics, the Idea that you had the virtue of wanting to be hardcore and autonomous and the grownups were idiots and the structure didn't give you the answer. Certainly I still feel like that a lot of the time. And I think the world is unfortunately presenting itself to us in that way a lot. But, yes, I have come to a more emotionally open and tender place. I'm older, you know, I, I, I really used to laugh at kind of hippie stuff and was more that punk guy that you describe. I completely identify with what you're saying. And now I realize I'm not laughing at all about John Lennon. Not that I ever did. I always loved the Beatles, by the way. But, you know, like, you would be.

[Sean Fennessy]

Flip about something like that.

[Joachim Trier]

No, I don't. I actually see that there's kind of a strength, I would even say a masculine strength to being emotionally available, and that there's power in trying to see the other and listen to it and stand in opposition to disagreement with an openness, because it's harder than to be so damn sure about everything and have that kind of sensitivity to things I think I value more and more. And I think also in art that it's kind of easy to get cynical sometimes. And I'm certainly, I don't want to be cynical. And I don't, by the way, think that punk was necessarily cynical. Like, some of it was a bit like, and we don't care. But at the core of it was an emphasis on do it yourself. A collective experience, a collaboration, wanting to create something that was beautiful and fun. And, you know. So again, you know, punk isn't so simple either.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's interesting to me that the last two films, you know, you've not just worked with Renata, but they've been stories told through the eyes of women, and specifically in this case, Two Sisters. It's not exactly an experience that you or Eskel have literal access to. So how do you build that relationship? And then how do the two actors become credible as sisters in the film?

[Joachim Trier]

Yeah, no, thank you. That's an interesting question. So, first part of that, I often get asked this thing about how writing for women and stuff, but that presupposes, I guess, that we write ourselves all the time, which we don't. You create characters outside of yourself. Exactly, for that reason that it's fun to create characters. And yes, you have to have a deep understanding of them. And in that process, like an actor, you will, you will maybe use, for sure, something of yourself. But I've just found it really wonderful to work with These specific actors, and in this case, like Renate Reinsve is a dear friend and I feel I can express myself for her just as I have also with male actors like Anderson, Nelson, Lee, you know. And again, a part of creating and making movies is to try to be a good observer, listen, be sensitive to what you see in the world. And I think so. Through that, I hope we create these characters regardless of gender or, you know, who they are, that, that. That they are truthfully put into the story. So how do you create then with the actor, this relationship? You're asking about sisters. I had Renata from day one because we wrote it for her. She was one of the motivations to do the film.

[Sean Fennessy]

The.

[Joachim Trier]

And how do we then find her sister? And it was a long casting process and we then encountered Ingaib's daughter, Lila Oz. And you'll see in the film that, you know, she has an earnest groundedness, which is a wonderful different energy than Renata's frenetic, charismatic actor of an older sister with all her neuroses. And you know, it's this kind of grounded, more, more held and contemplative character of the younger sister. So the chemistry between them were awesome. When we did tests with both of them early on. No, I really enjoyed that. It was wonderful. And they connected. It turned out they'd been in a theater play 10 years ago and they really like each other. So that was also something to build on.

[Sean Fennessy]

Their chemistry is a part of what makes the film so exceptional. There's two or three scenes between them that are just kind of. That you feel like you're levitating a bit because it feels very knowable, it feels very familiar, even though we've just met them. I know you were being asked about the house non stop, but I'm going to ask you about the house. I know it was close to where you live in. Where you live. Is it easy to just say I want this house for my movie? I mean, how does that work?

[Joachim Trier]

It's not. And I'm a fool as always. So I looked at 100 houses and then the house I wanted was right up the street.

[Sean Fennessy]

Great.

[Joachim Trier]

But you know, this is the process. You try you, you, you look and you fumble and then you find. And we found this great, great house. It was, thank God, the people that live in the house, in the real house. It's a singer and. And writer of a great band that I grew up admiring in the 80s called Delilos, a great kind of post punk new AV, Norwegian rock band that I really Loved. And he, He. He understood. He'd seen my films, and I'm grateful for that. And he really said, hey, listen, dude, I really want to support you. I love this stuff. He's also someone who's actually made a lot of songs about Oslo. So I think there's a kinship between us about, like, representing this silly little city in northern Europe that most people don't care about. So there's kind of that sweet connection. And he said, yeah, so hey, what if we make a deal that me and my wife and, you know, we. We can go to Italy for a few months and you guys shoot in the house and you pay for the holiday or something. And I was like, yeah, great. So we made a kind of a deal with him.

[Sean Fennessy]

And. But.

[Joachim Trier]

But the interesting thing was we also did a replica of the whole house in a studio because we're shooting the story of the house through the 20th century, basically. And we had to, like, do 1918, 1930s, 1940s, 60s, 80s, so forth. And we had to redress and go in and out of the real house and the dressed as the past build in the studio. So at some point we'd done a replication of his family home and his ancestors from pictures that we gathered in the 30s. And I took him and his whole family and his kids, and they're not grown up and everything. We invited him and his brother as well to the studio. And they walked into a set, and outside the set was VP screens, digital screens, LED screens that. Where we had created complete photorealistic replications also in the 30s. Exactly. Research what the buildings around that house had looked like. And the cars on the streets moving around. And we put them in that time machine. And his brother teared up and he's like, my God, this is incredible. We're in a time machine. We are in our house, reconstructed from the 30s with this outside looking at the window, the trees are measured to be smaller. And over there there weren't any trees. And that house wasn't built until 10 years later. And, you know, and it was such a joy. And his brother kind of teared up. It's like what you guys do in movies. It's crazy. And I felt so proud to be a filmmaker. And this is the big kick of making movies sometimes, is that you just construct the past and reality and you grab it and these shots and create stories out of it.

[Sean Fennessy]

But even furthermore, that's what the movie is about too. The movie is about this attempt to kind of recreate this memory, this vision of experience within the Space in which it happened. So you gave them that gift while making a movie that is about that feeling.

[Joachim Trier]

That's true.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's quite fascinating actually.

[Joachim Trier]

Yeah, it's weird, huh? Again, like my kids, they're suddenly having another daughter. Life imitates art.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. A couple more for you. The funniest joke in the movie by far is the gifts that Gustav gives his grandson. I laughed so hard. Can you just talk about that where how you and Gustav is this kind.

[Joachim Trier]

Of talking about punk? I mean, he's a counterculture guy and he doesn't like bourgeois middle class, class life. And he's coming to his nine year old grandson's birthday party. He brings a lot of wine. He's probably very nervous. He knows that he hasn't been a great dad and he's trying to connect now and then. His nine year old grandson has a birthday and he's supposed to bring something. So he brings some DVDs that he gives him, probably because he wants to connect. And the DVDs he gives is the Piano Teacher by Michael Haneke and Irreversible by Gaspar Noe to the rest of the family's big shop. And you know, I sympathize with him. He's trying his best, but it's obviously not good films for children. He even says to his grandson, looking at the Piano teacher, that this film teaches you everything you need to know about women and their relationship to their mothers. And the mother just. His daughter responds, well, we actually don't have a DVD player, thank God. You know, it's. So yeah, that's a bit of a comedic scene. The fun for me was we were suddenly, you know, we were invited to screen at Cannes in main competition in that big theater that we all adore. And I'm sitting there and that scene arrives on screen and everyone laughs. And I realized that both Irreversible and the Piano Teacher screened in that exact room in competition. So it was again, complete meta.

[Sean Fennessy]

So I want to ask you about the soundtrack. I know that you got asked about the soundtrack a lot on the last film and that you had.

[Joachim Trier]

I like talking about soundtracks. I love music.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, I. The decisions in this film are really interesting because you hear a lot of filmmakers, especially in the 90s in America, were using this kind of jukebox style where you'd get a lot of different kinds of genres, a lot of stuff that came from the filmmaker's youth getting reinterpreted in this new art form. Yours is even more wide ranging, I find. It's not just A series of pop songs. It's classical, it's gospel, it's these dirges. It's a real smorgasbord of music. So how do you determine what is it? Just what it feels. What feels right? Is it. Does it have to be thematically coherent with what you're trying to say in the film? How do you make the choices to pick songs?

[Joachim Trier]

It's very similar to when you ask me why I made this film in my life right now. So it's a mixture of many things. These songs, many of them I listen to a lot at the moment or recently. Some of them are from the past. Some of them I had a friend show me, and I suddenly realized it would fit a scene. I mean, we write in the writing room, Eskil Folk and I, with a lot of music. Like, Terry Collier is someone. An artist I've listened to a lot. Terry Collier came out of the Chicago soul scene, folk soul scene, in the early 70s. His producer, Charles Stepney, who passed away way too early, also was a part of Rotary Connection and produced Minnie Riperton. And, you know, there's this kind of that whole area of music I've loved for my whole life almost. But now recently really focused on Collier. And I was then trying to analyze why I opened the film with that song. And I realized that it had some of the artistic formal virtues that I was trying to embrace, which is that it's quite light and beautifully orchestrated and has a sense of levity. But at the core of it, there's a human voice that's very soulful and melancholic. And I thought, hey, man, that's the vibe I'm after. And then he has kind of a mirroring artist from the UK Lobby Sifray, who also made a lot of beautiful. And still. He's still around and makes great music and made some stuff in the 70s that I felt had the same vibe. And that's the end of the film. So they bookend the film, you know, so. So you try to find a structure that you can also justify aesthetically a bit. But at the end of the day, it's taste and. And what you enjoy.

[Sean Fennessy]

What does the title of the film mean to you?

[Joachim Trier]

Yeah, that brings us back to music, I think. I think sentimental value. The word and what it looks like and sounds like could have been an old standard. It could have been a Cold Porter tune or a jazz standard or something. It has that kind of sweep, sweet, sweet, melancholic feel to it, but it's also a word I Find fascinating. I remember as a child we have this assimilate, a word of which is the Norwegian word for sentimental value in Norwegian. And I remember as a child learning that word and thinking, wow, that describes something very human, this idea that you have a subjective relationship to something that's only yours. So it's about identity. And since we're talking about a family, we're kind of negotiating who are we. And we feel so different. I thought it was interesting to bring in that subjectivity into play. It's not only about that coffee cup that you remember your grandmother having, and now you have it and it reminds you of her. I think it goes beyond that.

[Sean Fennessy]

So you mentioned earlier that after Reprise, you kind of did the. I assume the water bottle tour movie got bought by Miramax. You got to get exposed to Hollywood. Is there any world where you would make a Hollywood movie? You seem to have this wonderful setup in Norway. And I know that the country is much more accommodating of artists than it can be in the Hollywood capitalist system. But could you see yourself making a Hollywood movie at any point?

[Joachim Trier]

I always thread carefully here because I don't want to offend the fact that the Hollywood locomotive pulls cinema and people through cinematic history. It's a big important locomotive that also creates. I mean, look at this year. Look at Warner Brothers this year and who they support, the great filmmakers. Some of them are people I know. I mean, Ryan Coogler I met at Sundance Lab and I was, you know, an advisor there and I love his work. And Paul Thomas Anderson's Made Again a masterpiece. I mean, one Battle after Another is just an extraordinary piece of cinema. So, you know, I don't want to say that Hollywood's. It doesn't make great stuff. But on the other hand, I. I have an ability and I'm being allowed to make films still in Europe that where I have creative control and. And I can do it at home and it. I can tell the stories I want. And. And yeah, it's a system that works. I shoot on 35 millimeter. I can still work with my friends and cast who I want and. And have final cut with still like 60 days, 64 days of shooting, which is ridiculous amount on a budget, which is not crazy. So that's a pretty sweet deal. So, yeah, never say never. But at the moment I feel very free in the way that I'm allowed to make films.

[Sean Fennessy]

What's your favorite part of the filmmaking process at this point?

[Joachim Trier]

The most intense, unique thing is to be allowed to be with actors on the Camera on set and completely identify with the moment. Like when I was a skater, if not thinking, just being there and really losing yourself in the moment with what you're creating. But I love writing with Eskild and finding stuff and the rush of knowing that, oh, my God, we have a film coming, or a new idea or a scene. Oh, I look forward to filming that. Such a rush. And then, of course, editing is such a torment at the beginning. It's so hard to get any structure in place. But that towards the end, when you start showing it to people and it starts being a movie and mixing sound and color and refining it, finally coming towards the end is such a beautiful part of it. And I'm present at all these stages. I'm in the writing room 90% of the time. Still has some writing days without me towards the end, because he's a better writer, and he refines and creates in that way, you know. But in editing, I'm there almost every day. So, like, I really love the whole process, but I do slow work. I mean, I make a film every third or fourth year, you know, and that's okay with me. I used to be ashamed that I didn't. I wasn't sitting there lamenting Woody Allen and could churn something out every year. I admire those people at ken. But I'm okay about my pace now.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think it's producing great work. Joachim, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen? I know you're traveling the world and showing the film and you're busy, but I assume you're watching some stuff.

[Joachim Trier]

Yeah, I gotta go back to one battle after another. Had the great fortune of becoming friends with Paul Thomas Anderson. And I feel. Speaking of music, I grew up really, really inspired by Martin Scorsese. And I know that Paul, in his own unique way, is also someone that plays around with music and movements. And you feel that Paul's camera is connected to a soul, to someone. There's a gaze and a movement and a temperament where the mise en scene is completely connected to a sense of a voice, someone expressing something, you know? And I love that in movies you feel it sometimes that a film can feel remote or it doesn't. You don't know what the vibe or who's making it or. And it's not.

[Amanda Davis]

It's.

[Joachim Trier]

It's a group endeavor, of course, but you feel with the through line and all of Paul Thomas Anderson's movies is something of a very personal nature, yet you don't know what it is. It's still mystical and interesting. And I don't know, I admire him a lot. I think he's one of perhaps, you know, the master, I think, of our generation of filmmakers. And I. And I'm so relieved and happy to see him continue, you know, and make films on this scale now. It's incredible.

[Sean Fennessy]

I echo those sentiments. And congratulations on your own film, which I think is absolutely wonderful. Thanks for taking some time to talk.

[Joachim Trier]

Thank you so much.

[Sean Fennessy]

Thank you to Joachim Trier. Thanks to our producer Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. Later this week, our number three movie and 25 for 25. Hardly anybody's guessed it. Yeah, nobody sees it coming.

[Amanda Davis]

I mean, we're recording this in advance, so there's five days for everyone to spoil it.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm gonna spoil it right now. It's the 2016 film, the Choice, and I'm so pumped to finally be able to see this movie for the first time, see you.

[Amanda Davis]

Experience the sequel everyone's been waiting for. With Sideline 2 intercepted, join Drayton and Dallas as they navigate the challenges of college life while trying to stay true to themselves and each other. Catch all the drama and watch Sideline 2 Intercepted, starring Noah Beck and Sienna Agudong for free on Tubi this Thanksgiving.

[Sean Fennessy]

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[Sponsor Announcer 1]

Zero sugar energy drink thing, but Ultra.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is a whole lineup now.

[Sponsor Announcer 1]

You've got Strawberry Dreams, Blue Hawaiian Sunrise, and Vice Guava, and they all bring.

[Sean Fennessy]

The Monster Energy punch. So if you've been living in the white cans, branch out. Ultra's got a flavor for every vibe.

[Sponsor Announcer 1]

And every single one is Zero Sugar. Tap the banner to learn more.