While treading in the dangerous territory of movies about writers (see comments herein about the tendency toward self-indulgence in such films), Danish writer/director Joachim Trier’s Norwegian drama, Reprise, tells an unexpectedly personal story, 
considering the director’s unconventional presentation of the narrative. In a manner which mildly approaches Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York, Trier (apparently no relation to Lars von Trier – who added the “von” bit) opens the film with an imagined story-within-a-story about the two central characters, best friends and bright, aspiring writers who are about to send off their first manuscripts to potential publishers. The pace of the information in the sequence, combined with the eventual revelation of its lack of “truth,” conditions the audience to receive the film in an altered, slightly heightened state.
The approach is refreshing, if not entirely consistent, and creates good entertainment out of what could have otherwise been an alienating encounter to events important only to these characters. Where it succeeds, however, is by exposing the ideas of ambition, competition, luck, and disappointment. Through these characters we can examine how time, experience, and emotional maturity can change order of our priorities, elevating the value of health, love, family, and the other notions that were previously deemed trivial.
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
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