The Northman - Review

By Niklas Müller

(Photo Credit: FOCUS FEATURES)

GRADE: B

Robert Eggers' new film after THE WITCH and THE LIGHTHOUSE, THE NORTHMAN is easily his most accessible film yet and therefore isn't as insane as the two aforementioned films. In some parts it is even lacking certain elements that make a Robert Eggers film so very special. Nonetheless this is overall still a very solid outing for Eggers and just further cements his status as one of our best and certainly most exciting up and coming filmmakers.

The story of THE NORTHMAN takes us to the 9th and 10th centuries, as we follow our "Hero", Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) who seeks for revenge after his uncle, Fjölnir (Claes Bang) kills his father (Ethan Hawke) right in front of Amleth's eyes. After his father's execution, he swears, "I will revenge you father, I will save you mother, I will kill you Fjölnir".

Whilst the film is mostly original, it is in fact based on the legend of Amleth who then later served as a direct inspiration for William Shakespeare's Hamlet. This wouldn't be a film directed by Robert Eggers if it weren't historically accurate to even the very littlest of details. It really does catapult the audience directly into this bleak, brutal world were you feel as though no character is actually "good". Cause even though Amleth is our "Hero", he is clearly in no way whatsoever a nice person. We literally see him kill children. We are supposed to root for him (even that is sometimes difficult to do during the second act), but we are not supposed to like him.

Speaking of Amleth, Alexander Skarsgård's physical transformation for this role is absolutely insane. I mean he literally looks like a goddamn monster and it is rather obvious that his enemies fear him (come on, who wouldn't). But it is not just his transformation that makes Skarsgård's character so special, it is his amazing performance. I dare say that it is probably his career best or at the very least second best. Eggers somehow always gets the very best performances out of his actors. Nicole Kidman (who plays Amleth's mother) doesn't have that much screen time (for reasons later revealed in the film), but she does get one bone-chilling monologue that made me wanna stand up in the theater and give her a standing ovation. This might have been the film's second or maybe even best scene. That is the Robert Eggers stuff that I wanted to see more from.

(Photo Credit: FOCUS FEATURES)

One of the things that I actually have to criticize is Anya Taylor-Joy's character Olga. By no means is Taylor-Joy the problem, but I do think that her character was heavily underdeveloped and she had almost no arc. I do think that a talented writer such as Eggers could have done something better with the role. Then again, maybe the issue at large here is actually the speculated studio interference and he might have had to cut certain important scenes for her character. I also thought that the relationship between Amleth and Olga came relatively out of nowhere.

I guess if Eggers would have actually been allowed to shoot the whole film in Old Nordic like he wanted this certainly could have had the brilliance dialogue-wise like his two previous films.

But then again compared to the rest of this historical epic it wasn't that much of a problem, especially if you have a score as perfect as this one is. Eggers actually did switch composers, while Mark Korven composed his first two films this one was composed by Robin Carolan and Sebastian Gainsborough. Who knows, perhaps the change actually was profitable.

While the film's cinematography is for sure awe inspiring (it is shot once again by Eggers' regular DP Jarin Blaschke) and there are some genuinely brilliant shots and some scintillating camera movement, it is nowhere near as perfect as THE LIGHTHOUSE's cinematography was.

I am really glad that Robert Eggers recently said that he never plans to make a contemporary film, because honestly if you can make three films in a row with this level of historical accuracy, you really don't need to do a contemporary film. And while this certainly isn't the best or my favorite of his films I am profoundly pleased that we got a film, that might be the best Viking-themed film so far!

DIRECTOR: Robert Eggers

WRITER: Robert Eggers & Sjón

CAST: Alexander Skarsgård, Claes Bang, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Björk

RUNTIME: 137 Minutes

RELEASE YEAR: April 2022