A book on The Worst Person in the World, Joachim Trier, and his other films (ebook): Existential detours
The first book on the films of Joachim Trier
Pre-order discount: $49.99 $29.99
An essential companion to Oscar Nominee The Worst Person in the World and Joachim Trier’s work, full of interviews and critical insights that demystify Trier’s creative process.
Ebook Release Date: Q2 2025
This is an ebook, not a physical book. It will be delivered to your email as a PDF and ePub on release.
Renate Reinsve in focus: An in-depth interview with the lead of The Worst Person in the World
Renate Reinsve won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival in July.
Why we wrote the book on Joachim Trier
About
Existential detours
Existential detours: Joachim Trier’s cinema of indecisions and revisions offers the first in-depth, 360-degree look at Trier’s process through interviews with Trier himself and his collaborators in front of and behind the camera on The Worst Person in the World — including co-writer Eskil Vogt, actors Anders Danielsen Lie and Renate Reinsve — and beyond.
Combining interviews with critical essays and writing, this collection will help you discover Trier’s interests, talents, and achievements — and the importance of his collaborators. It’s the key to unlock what makes his work so absorbing and unforgettable.
Erudite, casual, and easily accessible, Existential detours will be essential reading for fans of Trier’s work and a cornerstone for future Trier scholarship.
Seventh Row recently named Joachim Trier’s Oslo, August 31st the #1 film of the 2010s, and his latest films, The Worst Person in the World, the #2 film of 2021.
The new book Existential detours is the culmination of nearly a decade of scholarship on Joachim Trier’s work, so there’s nowhere better to look if you want to understand what makes Trier’s films tick.
We’ve been interviewing Trier and his collaborators in depth since 2015 for each of their films and were early champions of their work. Over the past seven years, we’ve built rapport and learned how to ask questions that elicit interesting, layered responses.
Why we’re the source for Joachim Trier criticism and analysis
What’s inside the book Existential detours: Joachim Trier’s cinema of indecisions and revisions
Critical analysis of all of Joachim Trier’s films
Existential detours explores how Trier’s films tell stories about characters in the process of figuring themselves out through indecisions and revisions. The films also regularly challenge the audience’s assumptions about the characters through constantly offering new perspectives on them and their relationships.
Read close-text analysis of some of Trier’s best scenes across all of his films
There’s no better way to understand the visual and sound choices that bring Trier’s work to life than zeroing in on the mechanics of a single, great scene. Existential detours kicks off by reminding you of some of the highlights of Trier’s films and the connections between them in themes and style. Dive deep into the cafe scene in Oslo, August 31st, Conrad’s diary in Louder Than Bombs, the frozen sequence in The Worst Person in the World, and many more.
Dive into illuminating essays on each of Trier’s films.
You’ll come to better understand how Trier gets to the heart of the existential detours each of his characters take in order to understand themselves. You’ll find new reasons to love Trier’s films and better articulate what you already love. Because the essays are also deeply rooted in analysing how Trier uses film form to tell stories, you’ll also get a sense of how film form can be used to get inside characters’ heads. Read all about how Thelma is more than a modern Carrie, depression and disconnection in Louder Than Bombs, and variatons on a romantic theme in The Worst Person in the World.
Interviews with Joachim Trier’s core creative team in the book
Through interviews with the actors, co-writer, and Trier himself…
You’ll discover… how the people at the centre of all of Trier’s films think about and analyse their films, in order to bring them to life, and how this feeds their collaborations.
Through interviews with Trier’s heads of departments…
You’ll discover… the craftspeople working behind the scenes who make Trier’s films happen, and dream up the details that bring them to life. You’ll come to realise why every little detail counts when creating these characters’ worlds. You’ll also gain a new and broader understanding of all of the crafts that go into making a film more generally and how crucial these can be to telling stories.
Discover exclusive behind-the-scenes artifacts from the films of Joachim Trier in the book
In addition to in-depth interviews with the filmmakers, the book will take you behind the scenes, visually, with photos from the set, as well as excerpts from the scripts and storyboards.
Shot list from part of the frozen sequence of The Worst Person in the World
Photographs from the recce from part of the frozen sequence of The Worst Person in the World.
Floorplan for some of the shots from part of the frozen sequence of The Worst Person in the World, featured in the Joachim Trier book Existential detours
Behind the scenes on the set of Thelma, with Eili Harboe (right) at the swimming pool
Renate Reinsve under innspillingen av Verdens verste menneske i Barcode/Bjørvika i Oslo. Joachim Trier og fotograf Kasper Tuxen bak. 14.08.2020
Excerpt from the script of The Worst Person in the World frozen sequence, by Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt
Praise for our books
I can’t recommend Roads to Nowhere enough
“A book that celebrates the auteur that is Reichardt without erasing the collectivity of making movies… This is a book about making films, but it’s also about watching cinema, experiencing its refracted perspectives, and going into the imagination of others.
As a Kelly Reichardt fan, I can’t recommend it enough and hope that, if you do venture into its pages of knowledge and discovery, you can find as much joy as I did…one sometimes feels alone in their cinephilia. Roads to Nowhere assures us, at least it assured me, that we’re not lonesome after all.”
– Cláudio Alves, The Film Experience
Breathtaking in its insight
“Once again, the Seventh Row team of Alex Heeney and Orla Smith have collaborated on a book that is breathtaking in its insight.
Roads to Nowhere: Kelly Reichardt’s Broken American Dreams follows the release of what might be the director’s finest work to date, First Cow.
While there is plenty here about the early 1800s-set Cow, Reichardt’s entire career is represented….Reichardt deserves this sterling tribute, and readers will gain even greater appreciation for her work.”
-Christopher Schobert, The Film Stage
A cornerstone for future Sciamma scholarship
“Portraits of Resistance covers enormous ground, reading Sciamma’s work as queer cinema, women’s cinema, European cinema, looking at the both the stories and the aesthetics, and how Sciamma has already created distinct and unique films with a singular voice.
Not only is it a great introduction for any who want to learn more about the filmmaker, it will be a cornerstone for any future Sciamma scholarship.”
– Shelagh Rowan-Legg, Screen Anarchy
Listen to the book’s editors discuss Joachim Trier
How to buy Existential detours: Joachim Trier’s cinema of indecisions and revisions
Pre-order now, and the book will be delivered to you as soon as it’s released.
As soon as you pre-order, you also get access to several excerpts from the book. In the months leading up to the book’s release, we will continue to send additional excerpts/chapters to book buyers via email.
The ebook will be delivered to you as both an ePub and PDF, which are readable on all tablets, smart phones, and eReaders.
Purchase the ebook now to lock in the price of $29.99 USD. When the book is released, the book will increase in price to its street price of $49.99 USD.