Being a Viking seems quite unpleasant. That's one of the major takeaways from Robert Eggers' Norse epic The Northman, inspired by figures from Scandinavian legend who also served as the source material for William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Eggers' commitment to verisimilitude means that he conveys every sweaty, grimy, bloody experience of the characters in vivid detail, putting the audience right alongside them as they grunt, toil and kill.
Alexander Skarsgård plays the title character, a prince named Amleth who as a child witnesses the murder of his father, King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke), by his uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang). Fjölnir kills many of Aurvandill's subjects and seizes Amleth's mother, Gudrún (Nicole Kidman), but Amleth escapes, biding his time until adulthood when he can return for revenge. He grows into a grim, buff warrior, participating in raiding parties among fellow Vikings who have no idea of his royal heritage.
When he hears that some prisoners from a recent raid will be sent to Fjölnir's farm as slaves, he disguises himself as one of the captives and sets his plan for vengeance in motion. On the journey to Iceland, Amleth meets fellow captive Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy), who practices what seems to be folk magic and supports Amleth's quest to avenge his father. Skarsgård is intense and imposing, but the stoic, single-minded Amleth isn't exactly a complex character, and Olga's arrival instantly enlivens the movie. Taylor-Joy, whose breakout performance was in Eggers' debut feature The Witch, adds the right amount of both mysticism and emotional range, balancing out Skarsgård's quiet brooding.
Observing his mother and uncle (and a new younger brother he never met) without their knowledge of who he really is, Amleth discovers that things have changed since he was a child — or maybe that things were never actually the way he perceived them to be. That doesn't alter his intentions, but it contributes to the movie's sense of heightened reality, even within a world that is meticulously replicated from historical records. These people live their lives guided by myths and prophecies, and Amleth experiences haunting, morbid visions that Eggers realizes with horrific beauty. Björk and Willem Dafoe appear in brief but powerful roles as shamanic figures guiding Amleth to his destiny.
The Northman is Eggers' most accessible movie to date, but that doesn't mean it's easy to watch, and Eggers immerses viewers in this unfamiliar world without any preamble or context. Still, the characters are driven by primal, easily recognizable emotions, and Amleth's motivations are not difficult to parse. The movie is more rewarding in its more complex moments, especially a late-film monologue from the embittered Gudrún, chastising her now-grown child for his simplistic view of the world. Kidman bides her time in the background for the middle of the movie, but she makes a welcome, ferocious return in the climax.
As impressive as Eggers' attention to period accuracy may be, it's the character relationships that keep the story compelling, which requires some patience from viewers as those confrontations build. Working with Icelandic poet Sjón as co-writer, Eggers has created a movie every bit as grand and monolithic as the legends it's inspired by, and the humanity is sometimes lost in all the bombastic posturing, particularly in the first half.
There's not much sense of love between Amleth and his father, merely the honor-bound duty to carry out a generational legacy of violence. Even if that's culturally appropriate, it's still a bit stultifying. But the humanity comes through in sometimes unexpected moments, and by the end, Eggers has captured the hollowness of Amleth's cycle of revenge, as well as the sense of rebirth that arises almost in spite of his efforts. ♦
THE NORTHMAN
