5 Powerful Screenwriting Lessons from Joachim Trier

Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value is up for nine Academy Awards this year, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.

Suffice it to say it’s one of the year’s most stunning films, a story about two daughters and their absent movie-director father as they try to navigate their relationships, familial and otherwise, after the death of the family’s matriarch. (I sobbed like a baby both times I saw it.)

Recently, Trier spoke with John August on Scriptnotes to talk about how he and co-writer Eskil Vogt put together their stories. It’s definitely worth a listen.

The conversation ranged from their unusual collaborative process to how they think about introductions, structure, and the perennial writer's nightmare of rumination.

There's a lot to take away here, but these five lessons stood out.

Listen to the episode below!

Character First, Structure Second

Trier and Vogt spend roughly a year in a room together before they get a draft done. It’s a hard but regular process as they break the story.

“After we have structured everything and come up with what we want to do, there’s a part of two or three months at the end where Eskil actually writes it out,” Trier says.

They are free in this long process to explore different paths they might want to take. The production of a script happens in a kind of rush at the end, but it’s fast because of all the planning that came before. They know who is in their story and what the major set pieces are, then they can figure out the rest.

“We’re slightly ambivalent because the storytelling, the structuring, is something we almost want to hang our material and our characters on,” he says. “I know there are wonderful screenwriters who are like, ‘I got the story, now I illustrate it.’ We work the other way around. We want the material and the characters to come first.”

If you've been trained on three-act frameworks and beat sheets, this feels like an inversion of that instinct. The shape of the story emerges from who these people are and what they want, not the other way around.

Know Your Ending Because It Tells You What the Middle Needs

The ending of this film is really a stunner. Nora (Renate Reinsve) agrees to play a personal role in her father’s film. The scene-within-the-scene plays out as it’s been pitched previously in the film, and it’s clear the role was meant for her.

When her father (Stellan Skarsgård) calls cut, father and daughter share a long, wordless look of understanding. They both have gotten what they want out of the scene, and their shared trauma stretches in the gulf between them. They’re connected, even at a distance.

Trier is clear that having a real ending is what allows them to play freely in the middle.

“It’s not to put too much weight on conclusion as tying things up neatly, but it’s rather trying, like in Sentimental Value , to have an organic, dramaturgical feeling of this story is now ending, but there’s just enough to keep thinking about.”

When you know where you're going, you understand how much runway you actually have and what can afford to breathe.

"Getting an ending and writing towards it will very often give you a sense of what your middle part of the film needs to be and how luxurious you can just have character scenes in front and play as opposed to setting up the turning point when it goes towards an end,” he says.

That doesn't mean the ending is locked in stone from day one. But the commitment to it informs everything in the middle.

Sentimental Value Credit: NEON

Open with Narrative Authority

The first six minutes of Sentimental Value aren't about characters, in the traditional sense. They're about the family’s house, told through a child's school essay, illustrated with various imagery from moments across a century.

It's a bold, novelistic device. And it works because it does something more important than introducing a protagonist. It establishes what kind of film this is going to be: reflective and rich.

Trier calls it "narrative authority."

“The authority sounds a bit strict, but a sense of guidance that we really care and we’re going to have fun here. We’re going to try to make a movie that takes you several places.”

The opening sequence sets up themes and shows the viewer what to track over the next two hours, without spelling it out directly.

If your opening scene doesn't give the audience that sense of guidance, they might falter. What’s the tone? What promise can you make to your audience?

Trying Meeting Your Characters at the Extreme

After that sweeping, century-spanning introduction, Trier cuts immediately to Nora in the wings of a theater, unable to go on stage. She has stage fright so severe that she literally flees, more than once, despite several stagehands trying to wrangle her.

As August points out, it’s not just one moment. It’s a long scene, seven pages. And we’re still at the very beginning of the film.

It works because the scene has such clarity. Nora needs to go on stage. It’s not life-or-death, but there are clear stakes. There’s a huge audience waiting. Her job is in jeopardy. This is mortifying. We understand the stagehands are relying on her, too. It’s clear what everyone wants.

August poses it as whether to introduce a character on a normal day or an “extreme” one. Trier chooses the extreme.

We don't need to see who Nora is when everything is fine, because for her, she’s never really fine. She exists in various states of anxiety and depression.

This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule. Sometimes you do need to see a character in their doldrums before the inciting incident changes everything. But for Nora, her journey is about acceptance and finding a way toward resolution and understanding.

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Ambivalence or Uncertainty?

When Gustav (the aging, difficult director played by Skarsgård) steps out of his car at the house after the funeral, that moment is his first formal introduction in the story. The script doesn't explicitly tell us who he is in relation to the present action.

In the script, his character introduction doesn’t say, “This is Nora and Agnes’ father.” He’s described as a director past his prime, capable of charm, but at that moment very tired.

If you were reading this for the first time, you’d probably feel curious. Who is this guy? What part will he play in what comes next? What are his relationships like?

Trier discusses this distinction. Ambiguity and uncertainty are tools, but vagueness is a trap.

"How can we be specific yet not give all the answers?" he says.

Knowing your characters well, and what direction the story will go, can help you write dialogue and action and details that will say just as much as, “Gustav is rude, aging, and doesn’t know how to connect with his daughters.”

If you're vague just because you haven't figured something out yet, the audience will sense it immediately. If you're withholding because you know exactly what you're doing, they'll lean forward and want more.