Few films this decade have managed to capture the millennial experience quite like Joachim Trier’s 2021 The Worst Person in the World. The Norwegian film follows Julie (Renate Reinsve) a 30-something-year-old from Oslo who flits from boyfriend to boyfriend, trying on new, but unsatisfying personalities for size with each relationship. Reinsve’s captivating, delicate performance spoke to millennial women everywhere, tapping straight into a generational unease: who are we meant to be? And why are we so lonely? Indeed, the film became something of a viral hit, with Reinsve’s frozen in time running scene coming to symbolise a uniquely millennial identity crisis.
Five years later and Trier and Reinsve have done it again. Trier’s new film, Sentimental Value, which also stars Reinsve, captures another facet of the millennial experience – a facet that just so happens to be a major talking point for young women this year. I am talking, of course, about the pain and pressure of being the eldest daughter – and, more specifically, the unravelling and, hopefully, the healing that can occur when an eldest daughter reaches adulthood.
Kasper Tuxen / MUBI
The ‘eldest daughter’ concept is a fairly new concept amongst millennials, but in the past few months, it’s been quickly picking up traction on social media. One podcast host says “Eldest Daughter Syndrome,” as an “undiagnosed term” to describe how many eldest daughters “feel like you have to be the rock – like you have to go through everything, make sure that everything looks fine. You want to fix everything… you become a second parent to your younger siblings, whether you like it or not.” Another viral video claims “eldest daughter energy hits different.” It then lists some symptoms: “Professional overthinker since age 8. Was told ‘you’re so mature for your age’ a little too often,” and so on. It concludes, “Healing from being the strong one for too long.” Then there are the countless viral videos calling out “eldest daughter core” in their favourite characters.
And a few artists have picked up on the eldest daughter conversation, too. Take Taylor Swift, whose song “Eldest Daughter” from her latest album includes the lyric “Every eldest daughter / Was the first lamb to the slaughter.” There’s also singer Gatlin whose 2025 album is titled The Eldest Daughter and singer Alex Apolline who released her EP Tales of an Eldest Daughter last year.
“Now in their twenties, thirties and beyond, eldest daughters are discovering this [concept] now,” Apolline tells me. “Finally we have the brain space to retrospect and realising there’s a whole lot of suppressed emotion and self-expression that there was never quite room for. It’s never been spoken about so explicitly before. We were all too busy trying to be everything for everyone else.”
