The Worst Person in the World
Joachim Trier · 2021
Julie, a thirtysomething Oslo woman, navigates a series of false starts — in career, in love, in identity — across twelve chapters and an epilogue, perpetually becoming something other than what the previous version of herself intended. Joachim Trier's film is the definitive millennial portrait of the person who cannot stop reinventing herself.
Techniques Used
4 techniques identified in this film
Tonal Succession
NarrativeA structural technique in which a film's emotional register shifts across acts, following a character's changing circumstances.
How this film uses it
The film moves between romantic comedy, magical realism, acute grief, and quiet realism across its twelve chapters — each tonal shift tracking a different phase of Julie's becoming, the genre fluidity enacting her own refusal of a fixed identity.
Non-Linear Narrative
NarrativeA story structure that disrupts chronological order to create thematic rather than causal connections between scenes.
How this film uses it
The chapter structure — each one a discrete episode in Julie's life — creates a non-linear portrait where the connections between chapters are emotional and thematic rather than strictly causal.
Observational Restraint
NarrativeA filmmaking approach that withholds explanation, allowing behavior and environment to communicate character meaning without dialogue.
How this film uses it
Trier watches Julie's choices without judging them — her indecision, her self-sabotage, her genuine attempts to be honest — the film trusting the audience to understand that the 'worst person in the world' is simply someone trying to figure out who she is.
Deliberate Close-Up Performance
CinematographyExtended use of tight facial framing to capture micro-expressions, making the audience hyper-aware of suppressed emotion.
How this film uses it
Kasper Tuxen's camera stays close to Renate Reinsve throughout — the film's argument ultimately located in the precision of her face moving through states that resist the chapter titles' ironic distance.
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