Joachim Trier can seemingly do it all. Adept at playing with form, the Norwegian auteur has masterfully directed a lesbian teen-horror (Thelma), a swirling meditation on grief (Louder than Bombs), a heroin-related drama (Oslo, August 31st), and a snappy comedy about rival novelists (Reprise). For his latest film, though, Trier has broken into the mainstream by tackling a fifth, more ambitious genre: the romantic comedy.

Julie (Renate Reinsve) is a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to leave her. Written by Trier with Eskil Vogt, The Worst Person in the World depicts a woman at an Oslo-located crossroads. Julie does and doesn’t want kids. She went to medical school but yearns to be a journalist, a photographer, and perhaps something else. Her boyfriend, played by Anders Danielsen Lie, is 15 years older and a celebrated cartoonist; meanwhile, the more age-appropriate guy in her life is more fun but less ambitious. In short, it’ll be relatable to anyone who’s ever been consumed by the “what if?” moments of their past. So, everyone, basically.

Poignant, hilarious, and freewheeling in its form (during a breakup, a voiceover overlaps with Julie’s dialogue, mimicking her thought patterns), The Worst Person in the World is up for two Oscars: Best International Film and Best Original Screenplay. “I’m proud of the intimacy that we achieved in the long dialogue scenes,” Trier says. “But I wanted to counter it aesthetically with montage sequences, like the acid trip, and when Julie freezes time. This is cinema to me. It’s to combine strange things that don’t necessarily fit together.”

Ahead of the film’s theatrical release (look out for our upcoming interview with Reinsve), Trier spoke to Dazed about his favourite romantic comedies. And, yes, before you complain, we were flexible about the definition – we know that Eden and Hiroshima mon amour aren’t romcoms.

NOTTING HILL (1999, dir. Roger Michell)

You went to film school in London. So are there any British romcoms to shout out?

Joachim Trier: If a film gets very popular, one can believe, “Maybe it’s not for me, because I look at Antonioni movies.” When I was younger, I thought a bit like that. But I loved Notting Hill, and I still do. It’s thematically very profound about what a hindrance admiration and idealisation can be in romantic relationships (laughs). It’s this feeling that you’re not worthy of the love that you want to achieve. And if you realise that you both feel like that, on each side of the fence, it’s very touching. And it’s Richard Curtis, who I thought did great writing on Blackadder when I was a child.

FULL MOON IN PARIS (1984, dir. Éric Rohmer)

Joachim Trier: Éric Rohmer has made endless smart films about the games people play when they try to find love. They feel they have control, particularly when it comes to choosing partners, and they all fall on their ass. Full Moon In Paris is insightful, sad, and funny.

EAT PRAY LOVE (2010, dir. Ryan Murphy)

Joachim Trier: I saw Eat Pray Love at a moment of my life when I realised I’d been in a series of relationships, and hadn’t had much time on my own. A big journey for many of us is finding that space of self-acceptance. I remember calling Eskil, my co-writer and film-nerd friend, and saying, ‘I saw a great film last night. You’re going to laugh, because it’s not the type of film we usually talk about. It’s Eat Pray Love.’

We love Julia Roberts. She’s a film star in the true sense of the word. So no disrespect in any way. But she talks to an elephant, and there’s a few things on the outset that you think, ‘That might not be two intellectual filmmakers’ favourite film.’ But the fact is, when I saw it, it touched me.

This is the power of cinema. Sometimes it goes beyond the context of taste, and you realise that there’s something deeper there. There’s something to be discussed about the ending. We choose a different path. But it’s a film about self-discovery and that journey. I love that.

I don’t like that Julia Roberts finds spiritual enlightenment, and there’s still another hour to go. The film implies that she still needs Javier Bardem to find happiness.

Joachim Trier: Yeah, it’s the Javier Bardem part. I think it’s comforting for people that she re-engages. I think our Julie will find someone in the future – maybe several – that she’ll engage with, and be happy with in the moment. But I wanted to leave our Julie with a room of her own; a place where she’s OK with her life. To me, that’s more poignant.

A MAN AND A WOMAN (1966, dir. Claude Lelouch)

Joachim Trier: A Man And A Woman is a nouvelle vague film that won the Palme d’Or. It uses the formal elements of the French New Wave – the experimental spirit of performance, time layering, and cutting – but it’s deeply romantic. To me, that sense of musicality is really exciting in cinema.

BEGINNERS (dir. Mike Mills, 2010)

When I spoke to Mike Mills for C’mon C’mon, he said you watched several versions of his film during the editing process. Then I learned that he saw Reprise and hired your editor for his film, Beginners.

Joachim Trier: Mike and I are good friends. And (my cinematographer) Kasper Tuxen shot Beginners. His material is so specific and nuanced, it has the feeling of life, and yet he’s very formally sophisticated. That balance, I find very inspiring. And at a time when everyone has strong opinions, C’mon C’mon is a subtle, human piece about being an adult with a child in today’s society.

DON’T LOOK NOW (1973, dir. Nicolas Roeg)

Joachim Trier: Our production company is called Don’t Look Now. I was lucky enough to meet Nicolas Roeg when I was at film school. His cinema, and how the formal elements create a new type of cinema, it’s still very watchable, fun, and exciting. But it’s also very sophisticated in its approach, and how it deals with the subject matter of time and montage. We’re off-topic with romantic comedies!

EDEN (2014, dir. Mia Hansen-Løve)

 

Joachim Trier: I was very inspired by Mia Hansen-Løve’s Eden. I know Mia a bit, and I feel that our cinema communicates with each other. Her brother was the inspiration for Eden, and he was a DJ alongside Daft Punk. In a way, [my film] Oslo, August 31st is a condensed Eden. It’s that idea of telling several years in one narrative. What people don’t consider so much when they watch movies is how you stretch or condense time. That’s storytelling in cinema.

8½ (1963, dir. Federico Fellini)

Joachim Trier: 8½ is a very freeform film but it’s all done to get closer to the characters. [In The Worst Person In The World,] Julie’s mushroom trip is inspired by the fantasy scene in 8½ where Marcello Mastroianni is engaging with all the women in his life. We’ve seen that male version. So in our film, Julie’s dealing with all the men in her life.

HOLIDAY (1938, dir. George Cukor)

Joachim Trier: George Cukor’s Holiday and The Philadelphia Story are both seemingly about finding love, finding the right partner. But they use that premise to talk about deeper, existential issues. The Philadelphia Story is really smart about one’s need to have a sense of self-love and compassion and weakness to be able to get close to anyone. If you only live from the premise of idealisation, it’s very hard to find anything like a solid partnership in life (laughs). And Katharine Hepburn – what a star.

HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (1959, dir. Alain Resnais)

Joachim Trier: The way Alain Resnais is working with time structure, and expanding on cinematic possibilities, is very, very important. To me and Eskil, Hiroshima mon amour is our Citizen Kane. It’s a toolbox of the potential of cinema. The sequence that I’ve ended up quoting in direct or indirect ways in all my films, since my first short, is the walking at night in Hiroshima mon amour. It’s how moving through space becomes cinema’s utmost potential.

I walk a lot myself. It’s the idea of looking at buildings and places, and feeling a sense of solitude. Alain Resnais’s way of using the camera as a gaze, sliding across buildings, and then engaging in that notion as a memory – we all have cities and streets that we walked through on that joyful day, on that sad night, in the winter and the summer. The layers of memories that places inhabit for us, is the most fundamental, existential experience that cinema can show us, that spaces carry us, and they will remain when we’re gone. Which is also a theme in a lot of my films.

The Worst Person in the World is in UK cinemas from March 25th