film / 2021
The Worst Person in the World
Julie moves through careers and relationships in Oslo while trying to tell the difference between freedom, avoidance, and the life she actually wants.
Verified facts
- Runtime
- 2h 8m
- Director
- Joachim Trier
- Released
- 2021
- Origin
- Norway
PlotGeeks explainer signals
Why read this explainer
The chapters follow changes in Julie's work and relationships before the final time shift. Aksel's illness changes her view of their past without bringing them back together.
PlotGeeks note
Leaving Aksel gives Julie another possible future with Eivind. The later illness and final photography scenes show consequences she could not settle by choosing a different partner.
Connected knowledge
Connected in PlotGeeks
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Timeline
Major events
- Julie builds a life with Aksel
Affection grows alongside a widening difference over age, children, and commitment.
- Time stops during Julie's escape
The fantasy sequence turns her attraction to Eivind into a temporary world without consequences.
- Aksel reveals his illness
Mortality changes how Julie understands their past without restoring the relationship.
- Julie works behind the camera
The final scene gives her a practice and perspective not defined by either former partner.
Story in 60 Seconds
The short version
Julie moves from medicine to psychology, photography, and writing while dating older comic-book artist Aksel. Their relationship is affectionate, but disagreements about children and commitment expose different ideas of time. At a wedding, Julie meets Eivind and begins an intimate encounter that stops short of sex. She later leaves Aksel and starts a relationship with Eivind. The new life initially feels freer, yet it also develops limits and misunderstandings. Julie's essay gains attention, she becomes pregnant, and she learns that Aksel has terminal cancer. His illness forces her to reconsider the relationship and the years they shared without turning nostalgia into a simple wish to return.
Spoiler sectionEnding ExplainedShow ending detailsHide ending details
Julie miscarries and spends time with Aksel before his death. Years later, she works as an on-set photographer and sees Eivind with a partner and child. She returns to her apartment to edit photographs. The sequence gives work a continuing place in her life after the relationships and losses shown in the earlier chapters. Seeing Eivind's family also places a former possibility beside the life she now inhabits.
Original context
Why it matters
The chapter titles resist a single verdict
Episodes give Julie's changes room to be comic, selfish, generous, frightened, and sincere. No one decision provides the final explanation of her.
Key turning points
Aksel talks about objects disappearing
His grief for physical culture is also grief for his own coming absence. Julie listens from a future he will not share.
Character links
Who connects to whom
Character motivations
Julie wants freedom to become direction
She is good at leaving lives that feel wrong but slower to build one she can inhabit. Photography finally gives looking and choosing a durable form.
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