playing Hamlet<\/a> to playing Hamlet\u2019s father) returns from the fields of battle, with his men \u2013 including his brother Fj\u00f6lnir (Claes Bang) \u2013 in tow. He decides it is time for his young son Amleth (Oscar Novak) to become a man, so out to the woods they go, for an elaborate rite-of-passage ceremony that includes a key bit of instruction: \u201cShould I die by the enemy\u2019s sword, you must avenge me or forever live in shame.\u201d He dies by the enemy\u2019s sword mere minutes later. What are the odds?<\/p>\n\n\n\nAmleth flees, barely escaping with his life, but leaving his poor mother (Nicole Kidman) in Fj\u00f6lnir\u2019s clutches. Years pass. (Side note: this passage of time is indicated in the trailer by a marvelous jump cut that I frankly wish they\u2019d have used in the film.) Amleth – played as an adult by Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd – has become a fierce Viking warrior, but his thirst for revenge continues to burn, and when he learns that Fj\u00f6lnir and family have relocated to Iceland, he disguises himself as a slave to slip into their orbit undetected. En route, he meets another slave, Olga of the Birch Forest (Anya Taylor-Joy), who senses a common cause. \u201cYou have the strength to break men\u2019s bodies,\u201d she tells him. \u201cI have the cunning to break their minds.\u201d And so, with her by his side, he begins his kill-crazy rampage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eggers \u2013 who knows from creating specific, indelible moods \u2013 crafts The Northman<\/em> as a sensory experience. The soundtrack is filled with pounding drums, screeching strings, and barbaric yawps, and every scene is somehow both gorgeously staged and shot while also muddy, bloody, and disturbing. (There is a scene with a head-butting that is truly, uniquely horrifying.) With the invaluable assistance of cinematographer Jarin Blaschke and production designer Craig Lathrop, he fills the frame with imagery that fuses the aesthetics of nightmares, bad trips, and \u201880s custom-painted vans.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAlso worth noting is the breathless fluidity of the fight choreography. These battles are frequently done in long, seemingly unbroken takes, but never in a manner that seems like showing off; it seems less like a flourish of the camera than an acknowledgment of the athleticism of the performers, and capturing their movements without edits feels, as in a dance sequence, to be properly respectful of their grace. But he also doesn\u2019t completely aestheticize the violence, thanks to a thoroughly upsetting scene of a battle\u2019s aftermath, a dramatization of the \u201craping and pillaging\u201d we so often hear about, but that encompasses a savagery that most epics tastefully skip \u2013 village burned, women and children sorted out for abuse and slaughter, and so forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eggers and Sj\u00f3n match that ferocity with the blunt poetry of the dialogue; their screenplay is filled with lines that could play like epigrams or clich\u00e9s, but rarely do. \u201cWe thirst for vengeance, but we cannot escape our fates,\u201d is one refrain; another is Amleth\u2019s character-defining \u201cMy heart knows only revenge.\u201d Given such laser focus, it\u2019s difficult to carve out much of a nuanced character, and the picture\u2019s main flaw is that it gives us so little of him to latch on to (and as a result, the romance between Amleth and Olga feels especially perfunctory). But he more than adequately fills the physical requirements of the role, and one of the film\u2019s most pulse-quickening pleasures is the graceful, almost catlike way Skarsg\u00e5rd moves across the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taylor-Joy continues to carve out a place as a singular screen presence, which is particularly noteworthy considering her short span of stardom (\u201cThe Witch,\u201d lest we forget, was merely 2015). Young actors can seem interchangeable these days, but it\u2019s impossible to imagine anyone else in any role she\u2019s played, and this one is no exception. Kidman plays what seems a typical role for her in typical Kidman fashion, a savvy and sly choice that makes the turns of the third act land with particular oomph. And Bang is a delightful and dastardly villain, which makes their final confrontation especially satisfying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throughout \u201cThe Northman,\u201d Amleth despairs of the choice between \u201ckindness for my kin, and hate for my enemies.\u201d It\u2019s a basic binary, but never that simple, and while there\u2019s not much room for profundity in a film of such brute force, it becomes a pointed and (yes, somehow) relatable choice. There is not, at the end of the day, room in one\u2019s heart for both, and Eggers\u2019 film has much to say about the demons that drive such a choice. He\u2019s a filmmaker of supreme confidence and skill, and this is one hell of a motion picture.
A-<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n“The Northman” is in theaters Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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