Viggo Mortensen

The Dead Don’t Hurt

10/06/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

I’ve always had a soft spot for Westerns but these days (on the big screen, at least) they’re about as rare as hens’ teeth. The Dead Don’t Hurt is clearly a passion project for Viggo Mortensen. As well as starring, he wrote it, directed it and even created the distinctive folk-tinged score. (For all I know, he did the catering as well.) As Westerns go, this is an atypical example, featuring few of the genre’s familiar tropes and cleverly subverting the ones that it actually does borrow. It’s handsomely mounted and beautifully filmed by cinematographer Marcel Zyskind.

Mortensen plays Danish immigrant carpenter, Holger Olsen, who, when we first encounter him, is bidding a sad farewell to his dying partner, Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps), watched by their young son, Vincent (Atlas Green). From here the story flashes back to Holger’s first meeting with Vivienne, showing how he instantly falls under the spell of this headstrong, unconventional young woman.

The main action of the story occurs when Holger and Vivienne set up home together in a remote cabin, close to the town of Elk Flats, Nevada, a place dominated by corrupt landowner, Alfred Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt) and his violently-inclined son, Weston (Solly McLeod). Together with crooked Mayor Rudolph Schiller (Danny Huston), the Jeffries have the place pretty much under their collective thumbs – the evils of capitalism are already exerting a powerful influence and God help anyone who dares to oppose it.

When Holger decides to enlist in the Union Army to fight in the Civil War, his only option is to leave Vivienne alone to run the homestead and, of course, he is away for years. While he’s gone, Vivienne is at the mercy of Weston, who has had his eye on her from their first meeting…

The Dead Don’t Hurt unfolds a compelling story of anger and retribution and both Krieps and Mortensen portray their characters with sensitivity. The various shifts in time and place are handled with considerable skill and the scenes where Vivienne manages to grow exotic flowers in the heart of the Nevada badlands are particularly memorable. It’s clear from the outset that the story is heading (inevitably) towards darker territory and, while Weston is a relentlessly unpleasant character, there’s some explanation for why this might be the case.

Even a climactic showdown between hero and villain is understated and the film is brave enough to offer an open-ended conclusion as to where Holger and Vincent may be headed next.

While it’s unlikely to make much of a dent at the box office, this is enjoyable stuff and those who have a hankering for a decent Western should seek it out on the big screen, where those Nevada landscapes will look more impressive than on streaming.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Captain Fantastic

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14/09/16

The ‘Captain’ of the title is Ben (Viggo Mortenson) a former hippie who now lives off grid in the wilds of North America with his six children. There, he drills them in a hard and uncompromising lifestyle, equal parts physical exercise, reading quality literature and discussing philosophy. Living in homemade tipis, the kids hunt deer, make music and wait for their mother to return from the hospital. She’s been there for several months, suffering from a bipolar disorder.

But then some terrible news arrives. She isn’t coming back. In the grip of depression, she has committed suicide. Of course, there must be a funeral, so Ben loads the kids onto his trusty bus, “Steve”, and heads for civilization. But what will Ben’s kids make of the ‘real’ world? How will they ever interact with kids whose idea of ‘the wild’ is based entirely on what they’ve seen in violent  video games.

This is an appealing, engaging film, wittily scripted by writer/director Matt Ross, and Viggo Mortenson excels in the lead role. Much of the humour here comes from the culture-clash between Ben’s feral offspring and the more sedate family members they encounter who cannot grasp what Ben has been doing with them. His major adversary is his father-in-law, Jack (Frank Langella) who clearly thinks he’s a prize asshole – which to some degree, he probably is, refusing to compromise on any of his dearly-held beliefs, even when he discovers that his eldest boy, Bo (a delightful performance from George MacKay), secretly longs to go to university, where he can experience something that he hasn’t merely read about in books.

If there’s a criticism, it’s that the family’s wild lifestyle is perhaps too romanticised. Occasionally, their day-to-day existence resembles an improbable Eden, where the worst thing they can encounter is scratching themselves on a rock. But that’s a minor niggle – on the whole, this is hugely entertaining from start to finish. It’s probably worth the price of admission, just for the scene where Bo plights his troth to a teenage girl he meets on a campsite, working from ideas he’s encountered in classic fiction, while Ben’s oration at his late wife’s funeral is another toe-curling highlight.

Catch this before it escapes back into the wilds.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney