“The day after the premiere, I woke up and I puked and cried,” says The Worst Person In The World’s lead actor Renate Reinsve. This was at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. “I was very scared to show the movie for the first time in front of 2,500 people. I was very self-critical. I thought, ‘Okay, the film is perfect, but I ruined the whole thing.’”
The Cannes jury disagreed: Reinsve won the Best Actress award. The critics also disagreed, showering the 34-year-old actor with “a star is born” levels of praise. The Norwegian Oscar Committee also disagreed: The Worst Person In The World is the country’s submission for the Best International Feature Oscar this year.
Despite its highly specific focus, the film seems to have struck a chord with everyone who has seen it.
The Worst Person In The World has been described as a “romantic comedy”, although that doesn’t completely do it justice. It is both hilarious and beguilingly romantic at times, but in step with Reinsve’s heroine, Julie, it is also messy, complicated and unpredictable.