Robert Eggers’ latest movie, Nosferatu, has become something of a box office phenomenon. Retelling the classic vampire story has resonated with audiences, but this is not Eggers’ first time adapting historically important works of fiction.
Two years before Nosferatu, Eggers made The Northman, which is the story of a young boy who is banished from his kingdom following a coup against his father. The film is adapted from the same source material as Hamlet, and it really leans into the period-specificity of its Viking-era setting. Here are three reasons you should check it out:
It features a pair of electrifying performances
The Northman is great actors getting the chance to flex their muscles, but Alexander Skarsgard and Nicole Kidman are particularly excellent. Skarsgard is the ideal muscle-bound brute, a man who has worked his whole life toward a singular goal and is willing to achieve it at any cost.
Kidman plays his mother and reveals herself to be much more than a wronged woman trapped in a terrible marriage to her husband’s killer. The agency she displays complicates the world of The Northman and fundamentally challenges the nature of the quest that has defined the entire film.
It really cares about the mindset of its characters
One of the most amazing things about Eggers movies generally is the way he works to ground the audience in how his characters see the world. This movie, which takes place in the 9th century, centers on a protagonist who thinks about the world in a fundamentally different way than we do today.
He believes in Valhalla, and his goal is not his own survival but a relentless quest to avenge the wrongs he believes were done to his father. The Northman never winks at its audience or points out how strange this worldview might seem. Instead, it takes his perspective quite seriously, understanding that it’s different from ours but totally real to him.
They gave Eggers a real budget
As Nosferatu might make clear, few filmmakers know how to make the most of the money they’re given quite the way that Eggers does. With The Northman, he got the chance to make a real action epic, and he didn’t let that opportunity go to waste. There are riveting fight sequences, including a climactic one that takes place against the backdrop of an erupting volcano.
The fights in The Northman can be brutal, but Eggers paints on the widest canvas of his entire career. Was it foolhardy to give a director this strange this much cash? Maybe, but we’re sure glad Focus Features gave it to him.