In many ways, The Dead Don’t Hurt is trying very hard not to be a different kind of Western. Visually, the movie evokes the same kind of feelings Westerns always have, and there’s nothing that is striking about the camera angles or the way the movie is shot. But the people who make up the movie, and indeed, the character at the center of it, Vivienne Le Coudy make for a very different Western just by existing.
Written, directed, and produced by Viggo Mortensen, who also stars as Holger Olsen, The Dead Don’t Hurt is nonetheless, Vicky Krieps’ movie. Krieps, who stars as the aforementioned Vivienne Le Coudy, is the one carrying the emotional weight of staying as Olsen leaves the life they’ve built to fight for the Union. And life for a woman alone is, of course, not easy. That wasn’t really something Olsen considered as he left. It wasn’t something he could consider.
That’s, in many ways, the cost of war. You think of safety as safety from death. And yet, in a town controlled by a corrupt Mayor and his horrible son, Vivienne is anything but safe. And the decisions she has to make to protect herself, well, those are things she and Olsen will both have to grapple with when he returns.
The Dead Don’t Hurt isn’t just about Holger Olsen and the relationship between him and Vivienne Le Coudy, though. It is mostly about her and who she is when he isn’t around, and that’s what makes the movie as impactful. Sure, the film takes its time exploring the characters before he leaves and after he returns, which adds to the gravitas and the sense that, deep down, this is also a love story, but The Dead Don’t Hurt doesn’t forget that deep down, this is a story about Vivienne. She is our main character.
We are here because of her. We are rooting for her. And it is through her eyes, through her pain, which ends up being not so shockingly the same kind of pain women in period films always have to suffer through, that the film finds its strength. It’s sad that the movie has to rely on the same kind of narrative to make Vivienne stand out, though it is framed as somewhat understandable considering the situation the movie places her in. The problem is, of course, that we are hardwired to think that. That every female story has to be about the same things. At least this one allows Vivienne agency in the pain, which is more than can be said about others.
Both a love story and an exploration of the times, The Dead Don’t Hurt is a look at what it means to be a woman in a time when women were expected to say yes, to belong to a man, any man. It is also a story about what it means to be mad at someone, to love them, and to forgive them. Nothing is ever simple in life, and though Westerns have sometimes been accused of being simplistic, The Dead Don’t Hurt is anything but.
That’s what makes it special, even when we don’t truly like the choices it makes.
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The Dead Don’t Hurt will be in theaters on May 31st.
