The Dead Don't Hurt (2023)
This movie opens and ends very dramatically, and basically opening with the ending, this frames everything in between as we mostly know what is going to happen. The narrative is frequently broken up with various jumps in time, which thankfully are handled in a way that doesn’t make it confusing. Throughout the movie I did struggle with a lot of “why?”. As in what is the movie actually about and why is it told like that. The various dramatic and tragic scenes didn’t really land for me emotionally, and Mortensen’s directing and acting didn’t really reach me. The movie is mostly carried by Vicky Krieps and the rest of the support cast does a wonderful job. Mortensen is a man of few words and I generally like how we are left to fill in many blanks in the narrative ourselves. Both main characters have a mostly unexplained past that we get bits and pieces on throughout, but not really enough to fully understand them. While their story is moving on paper, their attraction didn’t fully convince me and whatever Mortensen is trying to convey of themes with this story didn’t came fully across for me.
Rating: 3.5