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The Dead Don’t Hurt is Viggo Mortensen’s second outing as writer-director. His feature debut, 2020’s Falling, was a moving father/son dementia drama that garnered mostly positive reviews. Mortensen had cinematographer Marcel Zyskind (As in Heaven), production designers Carol Spier (Eastern Promises) and Jason Clarke (Black Mirror), as well as costume designer Anne Dixon (The Song of Names) as part of his creative team on Falling. They all return in The Dead Don’t Hurt, and like his first outing, Mortensen doesn’t follow a linear timeline here. However, this film is somewhat easier to track, and ultimately, the creative puzzle pieces fit in a moving, feminist, old-school Western love story set in the late 1800s.
Mortensen shines all around in his sophomore effort. He’s also a rare, quintupled threat here as writer, composer, producer, director, and star. That might have worked against some filmmakers, but not in The Dead Don’t Hurt, a subdued yet appealing film that often feels like a fever dream that’s hard to shake off. Credit goes to the film’s central love story, which gives the filmmakers, particularly editor Peder Pedersen, an opportunity to employ flashbacks to stitch the tale together. The concept takes getting used to, but it ultimately pays off. The Dead Don’t Hurt is a worthy, soul-stirring romantic Western, and its star, Vicky Krieps, is an absolute triumph.
The Dead Don’t Hurt Is an Old West Love Story With a Twist
4/5
Release Date May 31, 2024
Runtime 2h 9m
Pros
- Viggo Mortensen is impressive here, managing to craft a film as the writer, composer, director, producer, and star.
- The tragic love story at the heart of the film is intriguing and well done.
- Vicky Krieps’ character is fantastic, and she gives an excellent performance.
- The work of cinematographer Marcel Zyskind is stunning, making the film feel even more believable.
Cons
- The slow pace and time jumps may be too much for some audiences.
Once again, Mortensen uses his own family as inspiration for this film. Falling was a family drama that illuminated parent-child dynamics and deeply buried emotional wounds. The Dead Don’t Hurt has its fair share of wounds, too, as it leaps off a concept Mortensen had while musing about the little girl who ultimately became his mother. The film begins when a “little girl” is a woman at the end of her life. Let the time jumps begin.
We soon meet French-Canadian immigrant Vivienne Le Coudy (Krieps) as an adult. An independent woman who sells flowers in San Francisco, Vivienne meets Holger Olsen (Mortensen), a Danish immigrant. She’s intrigued. Here’s a man as bold and self-reliant as she is. They soon fall in love, and on an impulse, she decides to join him in his home in the frontier community of Elk Flats, Nevada.
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The town has its fair share of alpha males eager to overpower. At the forefront is Weston (Solly McLeod), the shady and violent son of the town’s primary land magnate, Alfred Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt). Mayor Schiller (Danny Huston) often turns a blind eye to the underhanded dealings in Elk Flats, and when Vivienne begins working in the town’s bar, her path soon collides with Weston’s, producing disastrous results. Tensions mount just before Holger agrees to fight for the Union in the Civil War, and when Vivienne is attacked by Weston, each passing day of Holger’s absence is grueling. Soon, Vivienne gives birth to a son, is forced to raise him on her own, and deals with the town’s merciless men.
A more haunting challenge awaits when Holger returns from the war. Suddenly, he and Vivienne must address a tragic event that, left unfaced, could dismantle their lives. The tragic love story element fully blooms here, allowing the film to gallop quite nicely into its final act.
The Acting and Filmmaking of The Dead Don’t Hurt
It’s at this point in The Dead Don’t Hurt that you begin to understand the reasoning behind the way this story is told. More effectively, perhaps, is how well Mortensen expands the feel of a classic Western, creating a different kind of love story that clearly shatters the mold of conventional female archetypes of the time period.
Vicky Krieps loses herself in this role, delivering a performance that is as riveting as it is heart-wrenching. By circling the focus around a strong woman fully self-sufficient in the 1800s, Mortensen creates a grounded feminist Western. Other storytellers may have played things over the top, but not this one. Amidst great loss, heartache, and tragedy, Krieps’ Vivienne emerges as a breathtaking heroine.
Equally compelling is Mortensen, whose performance is even, often underplayed, sharp, and on the mark. In Holger, he gives us a man who’s endured life’s challenges, only having to find himself having to right yet another horrible wrong. It’s also quite wonderful to see Mortensen give his other stars a chance to shine the way they do here. In addition to Krieps, Solly McLeod is a commanding, ominous presence as Weston.
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Cinematographer Marcel Zyskind delivers an impressive array of sweeping vistas, stunning landscapes, and rocky frontier settings, making this 19th-century story look and feel all the more believable. But it also reveals a kind of collective vulnerability of the time period when a flurry of danger can arise in vast open spaces at any given time.
Mortensen clearly appreciates the Western landscape but also has a deeper love for what lies within the inner landscapes of the film’s main couple. In that respect, The Dead Don’t Hurt offers both a compelling female protagonist and a unique couple who are emotionally intelligent enough to move through disappointments, arguments, and obstacles with a sense of maturity and grace. It recalls the stunning scene in Anatomy of a Fall when Sandra (Sandra Hüller) is so bold and frank during a confrontation with her husband, it leaves you speechless.
The intensity between this film’s couple never quite reaches those heights, but how they move through their dilemma is powerful. It’s one of the film’s many great achievements. While it may take a while to grow accustomed to this film’s slower pace and its time jumps, ultimately, The Dead Don’t Hurt is a wonderfully moving film worthy of our attention. The Dead Don’t Hurt opens in theaters on May 31. Watch the trailer below.
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