Film Review - The Dead Don't Hurt

Vicky Krieps is outstanding alongside co-star and director Viggo Mortensen, in an unusual romantic western

Credit: Shout! Studios/Signature Entertainment

Although this is very much the Viggo Mortensen show (he directs, produces, writes, composes the score, and co-stars), it is Vicky Krieps you’ll most remember from this unusual romantic western. She is understated and arresting as Franco-Canadian Vivienne Le Cloudy; a San Francisco flower seller wooed by Mortensen’s unassuming Danish ex-soldier Holger Olsen to an allegedly better life in Nevada. Mortensen is equally good but is offscreen for a significant chunk of the story, so Krieps walks away with the picture.

The plot is difficult to describe without spoilers and is best experienced with little foreknowledge. For some, the non-linear structure may prove challenging, and the languid pacing might keep those seeking more action-oriented westerns at bay. In other hands, I don’t think this film would have worked so well. But Krieps and Mortensen have wonderful chemistry. As flashbacks reveal their characters falling in love, there’s an economic, spare approach to the dialogue, leaning heavily on nuanced looks, gestures, and physical performance. Vivienne is quietly but determinedly independent, eschewing a wealthy but boorish art dealer in San Francisco and brazenly chatting up Olsen when he catches her eye. By contrast, Olsen is a laid-back, open-minded, strong, silent type, making them something of a match made in heaven.

Yet the path of true love doesn’t run entirely smoothly. Vivienne is less than thrilled at the lack of shade, trees, and flowers surrounding Olsen’s dusty, dirty home, and sets about bringing a feminine touch to the place. More seriously, she’s angry when Olsen decides to fight for the Yankees in the American Civil War — something he thinks is a duty to free slaves, but she feels is none of his business. Vivienne has deep-rooted personal reasons for loathing war, to do with her father (as revealed in flashbacks).

Intercut with all this is a future timeline, involving corrupt loyal mayor Rudolph Schiller (Danny Huston), equally corrupt landowner Alfred Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt), and his boozed-up psycho of a son Weston (Solly McLeod). In this future timeline, the older Olsen turns in his badge (having apparently become Sheriff in the intervening years) and rides out with his young son Vincent (Atlas Green) into the wilderness. As to why, some of that is revealed at the very beginning of the film, but again, I’m reluctant to give spoilers.

There aren’t many westerns that focus on women. However, this shares a certain DNA with recent-ish female-led entries Brimstone (2016) and Meek’s Cutoff (2010). The lingering threat of brutality in the former and the contemplative pace of the latter informs this film, though this is very much its own beast. Indeed, Mortensen is to be commended on multiple fronts, especially his instincts as a director. This is a significantly more ambitious picture than his directorial debut, Falling (2020), but it’s a credit to Mortensen that the film feels unhurried, unassuming, and organic in its atmospheric visual storytelling.

Cinematographer Marcel Zyskind captures some beautiful landscapes, making great use of Mexican locations with open skies, phallic rock formations, and barren valleys with clusters of windswept scrubland. The imagery occasionally has a surreal, dreamlike edge; for example, the recurring motif of a medieval knight; a fantasy borne of Vivienne’s childhood obsession with Joan of Arc. Thematically, this has interesting things on its mind such as male predisposition to violence, and the various reactions to it. Should one turn a blind eye, endure it, or stand against it? What are the moral implications and potential consequences for innocents regarding such choices?

None of this is explored in an on-the-nose manner, but the questions are inherent in this slow-burn gem. I stress again that it won’t be for everyone, but patient viewers will be richly rewarded. The Dead Don’t Hurt has lodged itself into my consciousness in a most agreeable way, with Mortensen on great form behind and in front of the camera. But again, it is Vicky Krieps’s spirited performance that elevates this into something well above average.

(Originally published at Medium.)

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