The Worst Person in the World
わたしは最悪。
The Moonlight essay
CinemaThe Worst Person in the World and the Crime of Not Knowing YetRead the essayStoryline
The whole story, ending included.
Julie in twelve chapters, changing men and careers in Oslo, refusing to be finished by thirty.
Told in twelve chapters with a prologue and an epilogue, the film follows Julie in Oslo as she nears thirty. She has switched from medicine to psychology to photography, and works in a bookshop. She falls for Aksel, a comic-book artist fifteen years older, and moves in with him. He wants children; she is not sure. Walking home alone from his book launch, she gatecrashes a wedding party and meets Eivind, a barista who also has a partner. They spend the night playing at intimacy without sleeping together, and part knowing only each other's first names.
Julie writes a piece about feminism and oral sex that finds readers online. Her father skips her thirtieth birthday, pleading back pain, and she learns he was at her half-sister's football tournament. At dinner with Aksel's brother and sister-in-law, while Aksel rails against the sanitised film of his comic, she feels invisible. The next morning, as she switches on a light, the whole city stops, and she runs through the frozen streets to find Eivind at his café. That day she leaves Aksel.
Eivind leaves his girlfriend, Sunniva, and he and Julie move in together. With him, she says, she can be herself. Then Aksel's brother tells her that Aksel has incurable pancreatic cancer. Julie finds she is pregnant and hesitates to tell Eivind. She visits Aksel in hospital, where he admits he is afraid of dying, says he still loves her and tells her she would be a good mother. At home she reminds Eivind that neither of them wanted children and says she needs time to decide. She spends Aksel's last days with him, photographing him in the places of his childhood. When his brother leaves a message saying he will not survive the night, she walks the streets until the sun comes up. Later, in the shower, she miscarries.
In the epilogue Julie is working as a stills photographer on a film set. She watches the actress she has been photographing leave with Eivind and a baby, then goes home and begins editing the day's pictures.
Starring
Renate Reinsveas Julie
A clever, restless woman in Oslo, nearing thirty, who keeps changing careers and partners and cannot settle on who she is.
Julie’s story
Julie keeps starting over: medicine, psychology, photography, a job in a bookshop. She moves in with Aksel, fifteen years older and sure of what he wants, and resists his wish for children; among his friends she feels invisible. After a night with a stranger, Eivind, in which they do not quite cheat, she leaves Aksel for him, and lies when he asks whether there is someone else. With Eivind she can be herself, she says, until she turns on him for praising her writing. Pregnant, with Aksel dying, she asks Eivind for time, spends Aksel's last days photographing him, and miscarries after his death. Later, a stills photographer on a film set, she sees Eivind with the actress she has photographed and a baby, and goes home alone to edit her pictures.
Anders Danielsen Lieas Aksel
A successful comic-book artist fifteen years older than Julie, who wants a family with her and later falls gravely ill.
Aksel’s story
On their first night Aksel, a successful comic-book artist fifteen years older than Julie, lays out why they should not be together, and she stays. He wants a family; she is not ready. The morning after a dinner at which he rails against the sanitised film of his comic, she leaves him, and he tells her she will regret it. Later he defends the comic on television against a young critic. Then he learns he has incurable pancreatic cancer. In hospital he tells Julie he is afraid of dying, that she would be a good mother, and that she was the love of his life. She photographs him in the places of his childhood, where he wishes aloud for their old life. His brother's message says he will not survive the night.
Herbert Nordrumas Eivind
An easy-going barista whom Julie meets at a wedding she gatecrashes, and who leaves his girlfriend for her.
Eivind’s story
Eivind is a barista with a girlfriend, Sunniva, when Julie walks into a party he is at, and they spend the night testing how close two people can get without cheating, then part knowing only first names. When he comes into her bookshop with Sunniva, he asks Julie to find him at his café. Leaving Sunniva, whose causes have come to fill her life, he feels, the narrator says, like the worst person in the world. He and Julie move in together and agree not to have children. When he praises a piece of her writing she mocks him for serving coffee, and he is hurt. When she tells him she is pregnant and needs time, he seems relieved. In the epilogue he comes to collect the actress Julie has been photographing, carrying their baby.
Why it matters
The Worst Person in the World takes a woman who cannot decide, about work, love or children, and refuses to treat her indecision as a flaw to be fixed. Julie's freedoms are real, and so are their costs: a partner who wants a family, a father who keeps not turning up, and the clock that other people keep reading on her behalf. The film is funny and frank about sex and about the politics of desire, and it sets a woman's writing about her own pleasure beside a man's grievance that his cartoons have been cleaned up. It closes Joachim Trier's Oslo trilogy, and it won Renate Reinsve Best Actress at Cannes. What it leaves open is whether a life can be good without ever becoming settled, and it does not look away from the grief of choices that close other lives off.