NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Criterion Blu-ray (June 2022): Criterion have transferred Joachim Trier's The Worst Person in the World to Blu-ray. It is cited as being from a "New 2K digital master and a Director-Approved Special Edition". It is on a dual-layered disc with a max'ed out bitrate. It looks perfectly clean and tight - perhaps a shade less rich on contrast than I might have anticipated but I expect the UK 1080P is probably very comparable. There are really no issues and the image is extremely consistent. This transfer gives a highly pleasing HD presentation. 

NOTE: We have added 58 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Criterion use a DTS-HD Master 5.1 surround track (24-bit) in the original Norwegian language. The Worst Person in the World has no aggressive moments and only a few deft separations (parties, crowds etc.) The score is by Ola Fløttum (Force Majeure.) The Worst Person in the World has a mass of songs - many recognizable tunes including The Way You Look Tonight by Billie Holiday, Christopher Cross's Ride Like the Wind, Todd Rundgren's Healing Pt. 1, Erik Satie's Pieces Froides: No. 2 Trois Danses De Travers, Maurice Ravel's Ma Mere L'Oye, Harry Nilsson's I Will Take You There + I Said Goodbye to Me, and Art Garfunkel's beautiful rendition of Antonio Carlos Jobim's Waters of March. It's a fabulous soundtrack and sounds pristine in the lossless. Criterion offer optional English, and French, subtitles on their Region 'A'-locked Blu-ray.

The Criterion Blu-ray extras include a 50-minute program featuring director Joachim Trier; coscreenwriter Eskil Vogt; actors Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, and Herbert Nordrum; and sound designer Gisle Tveito looking back on the genesis of The Worst Person in the World, the collaborative on-set environment, and the crafting of the musical rhythm of the film. The interviews were shot in New York and Oslo in 2022. There is also 18-minutes of on-set footage from the creation of the film’s time-freezing sequence. Filmed on 35 mm film using predominantly non-digital special effects, the dreamlike, romantic sequence in The Worst Person in the World in which Julie runs across Oslo while the rest of the city pauses required extensive preparation and was shot over a number of weeks. The following on-location footage and interviews with director Joachim Trier and cinematographer Kasper Tuxen provide an in-depth look at the creation and execution of the scene. There are also four deleted scenes; Texting (4:55), Julie and Ingvild (1:48), Stealing (1:03) and Askel's Old Neighborhood plus the package has a liner notes booklet with an essay by critic Sheila O’Malley.

Joachim Trier's The Worst Person in the World is described as a "romantic black comedy-drama". It can be quite sad with episodes involving family, sex, illness, experimentation (psychedelic mushrooms), feminism, relationships, pregnancy and love. Julie is always trying to find her place - soul-searching - perhaps coming to the realization that it is all about the journey not the reaching a final destination. It is the third film in Trier's "Oslo Trilogy" (on Blu-ray HERE), following Reprise (2006) and Oslo, August 31st (2011.) The Worst Person in the World is playful, inventive filmmaking as Julie moves through systems of love, advancement and occasional awkward maturation. It's extremely entertaining with no hints to the protagonists elusive evolution. The Criterion Blu-ray offers consistent, pleasing HD a/v (I really like the film's music) and production-revealing supplements. I found this a wonderful film experience - one we fully endorse.

Gary Tooze