When we first meet Nat Wolff’s character in Mortal, he’s a hermit-like, almost feral young man who appears to be lost, and in more ways than one. The drifter who we soon come to know as Eric bumps into a group of youngsters who just can’t leave folks well enough alone. One dies at Eric’s hands, but without even so much as a touch. While he is soon apprehended by the authorities, he reveals more strange powers that cannot be explained. He is taken by a U.S. embassy agent, Hathaway (Priyanka Bose), but his inability to fully control his powers causes the helicopter to crash.
From that point onward, he ends up on the run, relying on the help of a sympathetic psychologist, Christine (Iben Akerlie), who the police initially brought in to get Eric to talk when they first had him in custody. They two find themselves being chased by Hathaway and the local Norwegian authorities, led by Sheriff Henrik (Per Frisch). As they spend time together, Christine tries to figure out exactly what is the nature of Eric’s abilities, all while news of their journey spreads across the country, with people comparing his to Norse mythological figures such as Thor.
As a superhero film of sorts, it’s comparable to films like Unbreakable, Chronicle, Brightburn, and Sleight, small films with limited budgets that have the sort of creative freedom often not granted to their bigger budget Marvel and DC counterparts. However, something that also came to mind as I watched it is the classic Brian De Palma film, Carrie. It would be a bit of a spoiler if I got into specifically why, but to me, Mortal feels less like a riff on superhero movies as much as it feels like a horror-adjacent fantasy about what happens when we demonize things we don’t fully understand.
The film is directed by the Norwegian filmmaker, André Øvredal, who also co-wrote it with Norman Lesperance and Geoff Bussetil. I am a huge fan of Øvredal’s films, loving all his films from Trollhunters to The Autopsy Of Jane Doe to last year’s Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. He’s a gifted genre filmmaker, and I am always eager to see whatever he does next. Sadly, I can’t say Mortal hits on the same level as his previous three. It is his weakest film so far, but I still wouldn’t call it bad by any stretch.
It’s clear that the filmmakers are operating on some budget limitations, and given his roots, he knows how to take full advantage of the beautiful Norwegian landscapes where the film is shot, and the way the effects are integrated into the scenes are surprisingly well done. For me, the root of where the film falls short is in creating a sense of momentum. It’s in a sense a chase film, but it doesn’t move like one. The film is more leisurely in the way it follows Eric and Christine escaping the law, and it makes it hard to really feel the urgency and the stakes as much as the characters do.
Performances are solid enough, but the stone cold brooding sensibility of the film, which lacks the slight cheekiness that often defined Øvredal’s previous films, often results in a monotonous aura with all the characters. Wolff shoes promise in the early moments when he’s a bearded weirdo, but once he takes a shave and opens up more with Christine, a lot of his more interesting, weirder impulses fade away. There’s also the inclusion of a romantic subplot that builds between him and Christine that I found hard to buy, despite the actors doing a serviceable job trying to make it work.
I think what really struck me about Mortal was the humanity that the filmmakers were able to imbue throughout the film. A far cry from glamour of most superhero tentpoles, the world of Mortal is filled with people who are achingly human, people who are emotionally vulnerable, psychologically fragile, and suffer real consequences of its fantastical flourishes. While a number of its plot beats can be considered a bit too familiar, I like that the film goes out of its way to not go the easy route with the characters, trying to find as many opportunities for complexity that it can. I think it’s ultimately effective enough with the things that it gets right, even if it’s not necessarily great enough to transcend its modest ambitions, which can’t help but feel disappointing considering the people involved. The ending might strike some as sequel-bait, but I feel it’s something more complicated, more tragic, and more interesting as a final note for our “hero,” as frustrating as it can be, and the film’s ability to tap into something like that so fearlessly makes it one to not immediately dismiss.
Mortal is now out on VOD platforms.