The Worst Person in the World (2021)
From Norwegian director Joachim Trier comes a new coming-of-age story, The Worst Person in the World, which endeavours to capture the messy peaks and pitfalls of a woman in her late twenties and early thirties.
The film starts off by introducing us to Julie, who at the beginning of the narrative is a medical school student who decides to break up with her boyfriend and pursue photography as a new career path. Over the course of the action, Julie’s impulsiveness and aimlessness lead her to fumble through her youth on self-destructive paths. Yet, despite her recklessness and what the film’s title suggests, Julie is far from being the worst person in the world. Told in twelve chapters and bookended with a prologue and epilogue, the film shows captivating moments that epitomise the protagonist’s playful, flaky, and nonetheless genuine nature. The narrative deals with a comprehensive range of topics including the mounting pressure for women to enter motherhood, sexual pleasure from women’s perspectives, relationships with estranged parents, impulsive career decisions.
Trier’s remarkable even-handedness in handling the characters’ circumstances and fates is what saved the film from being trite. In each chapter of the film, Julie is confronted with issues faced by a wide spectrum of millennial women today. It’s true that the film does have feminist undertones and feminist buzzwords like mansplaining do come up in the film, but worry not, you will not find any hollow feminist statement here. The character of Julie provides a far more ambitious and compelling vantage point a person who has grown up but not quite matured yet. The film never downplays the fact that her womanhood is a significant part of and at the same time manages to highlight a more universal futility of youth. The film’s most hard-hitting moment takes place when Julie discovers that her ex-boyfriend, Aksel, is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He is grappling with the inevitability of death as someone without a future. And it is in Julie’s response to Aksel’s melancholic monologue that shows the true strength of her character. In the midst of uncertainty and fears, she chooses to commit to herself and her passion, finally ridding herself of being the supporting role or the spectator in her life.
The Worst Person in the World is a pensive reminder us that every choice you make can lead you to where you’re meant to be even if you can’t see where you’re going yet, and how quickly something can fade into nothing more than shadows and memories. It’s all a part of your evolution, even the sorrow, there is nothing to do but to go on and all the wandering is worth celebrating.
