The Dead Don’t Hurt is a quiet, soulful, almost contemplative, western, with a methodical pace and oddly structured narrative. Writer/director/composer/star Viggo Mortensen does a very intriguing thing by giving his audience all the normal trappings of a western and then barely paying any attention to those aspects. There is a calmness to his character, a man far more interested in love than in violence. The deadly lawlessness of the time is on full display, but it stays on the margins, outside of a few scenes. When someone goes off to join the Civil War, the story remains with who was left behind. The clichés are mostly eschewed in favor of character-building.
That works up to a point. The leisureliness of the movie wears thin after a bit, due in part to Mortensen’s inability to capture the landscape in any kind of vivid detail. The Dead Don’t Hurt (121 minutes, without the end credits) is clearly the work of a filmmaker getting the chance to make what he wanted. The result is admirable, though generally just okay.
Olsen is a foreigner trying to make an honest living in the old west. Vivienne is also a foreigner, a free-spirited woman who does not wish to be paraded around as a man’s property. They fall in love quickly, battling the harshness of the land together. However, war and inhumanity lead them to heartbreak.
Issue number one here is the structure. Mortensen chose to jumble it, starting at the end, then jumping back, with occasional glimpses into the future. Not only is it disorienting, but it adds little in the way of emotional impact or insight. It also blunts the drama. This feels like a story that definitely would have been better off being told in a straightforward way. Mortensen never makes it feel necessary to what he is trying to do here. This is about these people and their struggle. Narrative nonlinearity does not help tell their story.
What is fascinating about The Dead Don’t Hurt is the way the screenplay gives us common genre tropes such as a corrupt businessman, a stoic lawman, a crazy gunman in a black hat and a woman from the city having to deal with surviving in the middle of nowhere, and then subverts them. Mortensen’s Olsen is not simply an unusual western hero, he isn’t even the real protagonist. That would be Vivienne, played by Vicky Krieps as a woman who wants to be as independent as possible, while knowing she can only push men so far. Her journey, and how it effects Olsen, is what this is really about. All the major story beats come from her. Her love for Olsen and her desire to work at a bar in the nearby town are where the drama comes from.
Mortensen’s Olsen is a thoughtful man who doesn’t react with the base masculinity expected from a character in his situation. He loves Vivienne first and foremost. His reputation doesn’t matter to him. Their relationship is legitimately compelling and makes this feel quite different from what the opening made me anticipate. I liked that.
I also liked the performances from character actors Garret Dillahunt, Danny Huston and W. Earl Brown as a businessman, the mayor and a bar owner, respectively. They play familiar roles with unexpected slants. There is a lot to enjoy here. Mortensen’s pacing is better than his overall direction, which doesn’t do a particularly good job of taking advantage of the setting. There is little sense of location here. That and the structure took me out of things too much. There is a really strong movie in here, made by a promising director, yet the execution is off just enough to knock this down a couple of pegs.
3¼ out of 5
Cast:
Vicky Krieps as Vivienne
Viggo Mortensen as Olsen
Garret Dillahunt as Alfred Jeffries
Solly McLeod as Weston Jeffries
Danny Huston as Rudolph Schiller
Written/Directed by Viggo Mortensen
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