Robert Eggers (“The Lighthouse,” “The VVitch”) is one of those directors in a special class of A24 darlings who’ve truly broken into the mainstream, alongside the likes of Alex Garland, Ari Aster, Daniels, and the Safdie brothers. Not only is he working with bigger budgets and larger scale concepts, but his latest film is now also distributed by a larger studio, Universal via its Focus Features banner. With that larger scale comes larger expectations, and “The Northman” is certainly Eggers’ true, brutal vision of a Viking revenge film, for better and for worse.
Set in 895 AD, the film follows Amleth, played by Alexander Skarsgård (“The Stand (2020),” “Big Little Lies”), a Viking warrior prince, who returns to his homeland seeking revenge against the man, Fjölnir the Brotherless, played by Claes Bang (“The Square,” “Dracula (2020)”), who killed his father, King Aurvandill War-Raven, played by Ethan Hawke (“Before Sunrise,” “Moon Knight”), and kidnapped his mother, Queen Gudrún, played by Nicole Kidman (“Moulin Rouge!,” “Big Little Lies”), enlisting in the help of sorceress Olga of the Birch Forest, played by Anya Taylor-Joy (“The VVitch,” “Emma”), to help him.
It’s not nearly as complicated as it sounds, and Eggers and cor-writer Sjón (“Lamb”) use both visual storytelling and an incredibly economic script to dole out information in both complimentary spoken dialogue and visual forms. And that balance is important, because both of those forms can be, frankly, bizarre and hard to parse at times. It’s choked full of spells and chants, some of which are hard to understand because of either the language or the audio mixing or sometimes both, and also supplements all of it with hallucinogenic visuals that offer more questions than answers. Which is why that balance is so great. It’s never hard to understand despite all of the stimuli being thrown around at once.
Skarsgård and Taylor-Joy are the stars of the show here. They’re both incredible, channeling a remarkable amount of depth and emotional weight to what could have easily been a pair of two-dimensional characters. Their chemistry is wonderful, and their bond is a true highlight to watch grow as the film progresses.
Kidman’s screen time is used smartly for maximum impact, and despite only being here for maybe twenty minutes, there are singular scenes that are better than the entirety of her “Oscar nominated” performance in “Being the Ricardos.” Bang, like our two leads, injects a lot of emotion into what could have easily been a rote character, even if he isn’t quite as fleshed out as the others. Hawke isn’t given much time to do anything, but he does a great job with the time he does have, as does previous Eggers collaborator Willem Dafoe (“The Lighthouse,” “The Florida Project”) who’s role, while great, is little more than a cameo in the grand scheme.
In terms of pure technical merits, “The Northman” might just be one of the most visually striking and purely gorgeous films in recent years, maybe much longer. Its locations might be low tech but the way it uses lighting, music, and darkness are impeccable. Every new scene and camera movement allows for new fun to be had by Eggers and his cinematographer Jarin Blaschke (“The Lighthouse,” “The VVitch”). It really does feel like watching a director get to play with everything in the toy box, underscored by a thumping and psychedelic musical score from Robin Carolan and Sebastian Gainsborough.
It's in the film’s pacing where everything grinds to a halt. Having films that focus on brutal violence, rage or revenge obsessed characters that are as purely toxic and meat headed as they come, with no real “lesson” to be learned, that’s all fine and well. Movies like that have existed for years, and they should continue to exist. But the pacing of “Northman” makes it drag even in its most visually and emotionally interesting moments.
By the time it all ends, it does sort of land with a bombastic thud. A showy and dramatic ending that makes your eyes wince as the theatre lights turn back on and make you think “that’s it?” It just becomes exhausting, going from bloody death, to threat, to psychological dream, to more bloody deaths, to more threats, etc. etc. etc. Even if the film itself is gorgeous and has a story that is impeccably acted and is, at its core, emotionally interesting, in execution it's just an exhausting display of violence and toxicity. It's cool to look at, but to what end is that coolness used? And again, that’s not to say every film has to be a morally balanced plate of cinematic vegetables, but it can at least be a better paced violent gore porn revenge fantasy. No amount of gorgeous technical artistry and production design can fix that.
“The Northman” is not for everybody, and it certainly wasn’t on paper either. It has a great cast, led by two arguably career best performances with a sort of visual flair and hallucinogenic styling that makes you wonder what your popcorn might have been laced with. But even all of that can’t help when the film feels easily twice as long as it is and just leaves you drug out by the end of it. It’s a hard thing to deal with; a film that is so rich that, even as you’re begging it to end, it still manages to do cool and fascinating things. 3/5
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