With awards season officially underway, it’s time to revisit the biggest movies of the year and reassess what felt the best and what couldn’t make the cut. It’s been two weeks since the 2026 Golden Globe nominations were released, and the cinephile community has initiated and engaged in a million debates about which movies deserve nominations and which were snubbed.
The 2026 Best Actor Oscar predictions have sparked a raging debate about whose performance is the most deserving of nominations and wins. The end-of-year rewatches have brought some of the lesser-noticed performances back into the conversation, as everyone has a favorite performance that they believe deserves more recognition from the many upcoming award ceremonies.
The 2026 Best Picture Oscar race might seem over due to the overwhelming support for Sinners, and its apparently unbeatable campaign, but as with every year since 2020, some foreign films still stand a chance of being nominated for and winning the much-coveted award next year. Among them is the 2022 Best Screenplay nominee, Joachim Trier’s movie, Sentimental Value.
Elle Fanning Plays An Incompetent Actress In Sentimental Value
Sentimental Value primarily follows Nora, played by Renate Reinsve, who has a strained relationship with her father, Gustav, played by Stellan Skarsgård. The latter is a filmmaker, and wants to direct a film he’s written, based on his experiences as a child, growing up in Nora’s ancestral home. Nora, who’s a theater actress, refuses the lead role in the film.
This prompts Gustav to cast another actress in her stead, Rachel Kemp, played by Elle Fanning. Gustav believes he has found the perfect actress to portray the character he’s written based on his own mother, the role he’d initially offered Nora. Rachel Kemp is the typical up-and-coming Hollywood actress, backed by Netflix, which is shown to be producing the movie.
However, for all her glamor and her liveliness, Kemp struggles to fit into the role that Gustav has chosen her for. Sentimental Value‘s reviews all focus on the emotionally heavy screenplay that Trier has composed, as if it’s an opera of familial tensions, all dancing to their own beat, fighting for the spotlight as their domestic life starts unraveling slowly.
It’s in this symphony that Rachel Kemp struggles to play a part. She sticks out like a sore thumb, who is being forcefully chosen as a substitute by Gustav, who refuses to see the folly of his ways and wants to reckon with his failings as a parent by nurturing her career. Filmmaking is practically an excuse for him here.
The fact that Kemp isn’t a good-enough actress to successfully deliver the compelling performance that Gustav and his screenplay demand is lost on him. However, it is painfully obvious to viewers that Kemp is out of her depth, and the sentimentality he wants from her is both entirely lost in translation and simply too difficult for her to convey.
Elle Fanning’s Performance Is Essential To The Movie’s Emotional Core
Convincingly portraying a character who is flippant, full of confidence, and utterly oblivious to their own incompetence isn’t an easy task. Pretending to be a bad performer takes a lot of caliber, and Elle Fanning proves up to the task by embodying Kemp’s showy personality. Her performance carefully balances Kemp’s incompetence as an actress with her interest in the work.
The ending of Sentimental Value communicates a truth about art’s ability to heal, and without Fanning’s performance, the buildup in the third act wouldn’t be as satisfying. The superficial level at which Kemp interacts with Gustav’s material is the ideal backdrop against which the emotional thread of the climax is woven into a tapestry of trauma, liberation, connection, and understanding.
Fanning And Reinsve Put On A Rivarly Without Sharing Screenspace
Sentimental Value set a record for the Cannes standing ovation, becoming the movie to receive the third-longest ovation in the history of the festival since the ovations started being timed, at 19 minutes. Part of the reason for the overwhelmingly positive reception is, of course, its endearing message, and the performances that convincingly bring Trier’s screenplay’s conflicts to life.
The most charming aspect of this is the rivalry between Rachel Kemp and Nora Borg, as the two barely share any screen space. Reinsve and Fanning’s performances are so complementary to each other that the rivalry seems to unfold on the screen despite them being in very few frames together. Fanning’s performance is as responsible for this phenomenon as Reinsve’s.
Elle Fanning Has Been Nominated For A Golden Globe
She was snubbed by the Academy in 2022, but Renate Reinsve is again a fierce presence in the 2026 Best Actress Oscar conversation. Her chances of winning became even more likely after she was nominated for the Best Actress Golden Globe in the drama category. Her co-star Stellan Skarsgård has also been nominated for Best Actor by the Golden Globes.
However, the surprise nominee is Elle Fanning, who, despite being absent from the conversation about the best performances of the year, has been nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe. While the Academy rarely nominates so many performances from the same film, I hope she’s given a fair chance alongside her costars, as she delivers 2025’s most underrated performance.
