Well, this is a divisive film. (Possibly I'm not the target audience - I relate most to the mother of the main character in the prologue, listening to her daughter repeatedly drop out of various career paths - but then the writers are two white men who will both hit 50 this year, so...) First of all, beware of non-English-language films billed as comedies. We've been burned before by Tatie Danielle and My Life as a Dog. This one was even billed as a "rom-com", when if anything it's the antithesis of that. It's also divisive in that I started out pretty much hating it, and then by the end found myself completely absorbed, so there's that to be said for it. And, although it's hard to much like any of the characters, the film pretty much innoculates itself from the "unlikeable" criticism by calling itself The Worst Person in the World. (Although it's not clear which character is supposed to be that. As the main character is Julie (see picture) that's the clear implication, but she'd not really bad, just flawed and rudderless, and the only time the phrase is mentioned in the film it's uttered by perhaps the least unlikeable major character (Eivind).
Anyway, the story is 4 years in the life of Julie (although we see some earlier years in the prologue, so it seems more) as she falls for a significantly older man (Aksel), lives with him for a while as his underground comics go more mainstream, visit his friends, who are older and all have children (and who get into embarrassing fights in the room next door),
meets another man (Eivind), leaves Aksel, finds out Aksel is dying of pancreatic cancer and miscarries the pregnancy neither she nor Eivind wanted. Then the epilogue (to the 12 "chapters" wherein the above story is told) reveals that she and Eivind have separated and he's had a child with another woman, who is clearly not as intelligent as Julie. Bittersweet is putting it mildly. I don't call that rom and there's not all that much com, either. What's annoying about the film is that it's a strange mix of anti-Hollywood realism (while Renate Reinsve, who plays Julie, is clearly very attractive by normal human standards, she's not really by film star standards, and the two men are certainly ordinary-looking) - the main characters make really stupid decisions, aren't especially nice, say hurtful things - combined with some rather disappointing writing. For example, at one point Julie writes a post-me-too "feminist" article that gets published, but nothing she says in it would have been remarkable when we were in college (i.e., when the writers were in high school, which might explain it). The fact that the film was written by two men might have something to do with it. However, the acting is so good that you can forget some stilted passages for the most part, and after Aksel gets sick (and pretty much the last vestiges of "com" drop away). However, that's also the most compelling part of the film. Aksel does not confront death with equanimity, let us say, and his regrets and anguish are very compellingly conveyed by Anders Danielsen Lie.
There are two fantasy interludes in the film, one grotesque (but this is defensible because it's supposed to represent a bad mushroom trip) that causes Julie to strip naked and smear her cheeks with menstrual blood, but the other beatific. Julie's first meeting with Eivind happens when she leaves a party thrown in honor of the film version of Aksel's Fritz-the-Cat-like comic creation (which ends up butchering it by, for one thing, removing his "iconic butthole") because it makes her feel like "she's a spectator in her own life," and, on the way home (walking, because apparently Oslo is tiny) she crashes a wedding party at which he is a guest. As both are part of couples and opposed to cheating, they avoid sex or even kissing, but dare each other to come close to crossing that line (smelling each others' sweat, watching each other pee).
They go their separate ways without exchanging surnames, but by chance reconnect when Eivind and his annoying (she's pretty much the comic relief, whether or not she deserves it) partner visit the bookstore where she works (looking for a book for her called "Green Yoga"). He tells her where he works (a coffee shop - unlike Aksel, he certainly won't overshadow her), and she is in a daze. So, the next morning, she comes into the kitchen and Aksel offers to pour her some coffee (Norwegians, on the strength of this film, cannot live without a constant supply of coffee) and she reaches over a flicks a light switch and... everything but her freezes. Then, joyfully (the poster is taken from this sequence) she runs to the coffee shop, past motionless cars and pedestrians, where Eivind is also unaffected, and they pass a glorious 24 hours (still chaste), whereupon she returns, flicks the switch, and breaks up with Aksel (and have breakup sex).
What are we to make of that? Should there have been more such sequences, or are you allowed only to use one? And is it to indicate how magical a crush can be (and of course, the magic doesn't last)?
Anyway, I don't think that you can deny that it's a well-made film, beautifully acted, with characters that seem real (I don't think they would frustrate or annoy me as much otherwise), albeit not as radical as perhaps their writers intended. Just don't expect a rom-com. But do expect to feel bad about your house after seeing all the beautifully tasteful places Norwegians apparently live, even shiftless Millennials who work in bookshops and/or coffee shops.
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