I think life needs compassion and forgiveness to be liveable

LAURA HARDING DISCUSSES OSCAR-TIPPED FAMILY DRAMA SENTIMENTAL VALUE WITH THE DARKLY COMIC FILM'S DIRECTOR AND CO-STARS STELLAN SKARSGARD AND RENATE REINSVE

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WHAT forms our memories of childhood? How do those memories shape the adults we become? And how can art salve the wounds and grievances we carry with us from our youth?

These are the questions at the heart of the critically acclaimed film Sentimental Value, a searing but stealthily witty story about a preening, past-his-prime director and the emotional damage he has inflicted on his two adult daughters by abandoning them in their childhood to pursue his own ambitions.

Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard, best known for roles in Dune, Andor and Mamma Mia, plays the vain but charismatic auteur Gustav Borg, whose career is now on the slide and who hopes to stage a comeback with a biopic of his mother filmed in the family home where she took her own life.

Gustav wants his actress daughter Nora, played by Presumed Innocent actress Renate Reinsve, to take the leading role, but when she turns it down he gives her part to a famous Hollywood starlet, played by Maleficent actress Elle Fanning.

Suddenly Nora and her sister Agnes must navigate their complicated relationship with their father and the American star, who finds herself in the middle of their complex family dynamics.

"He's better at dealing with emotions in his film work, in his art, and he's incapable in his private life," says Stellan of Gustav.