This week, André Øvredal’s Mortal hits theaters and VOD. It’s a traditional superhero origin story told in a completely untraditional way, flipping the genre around.
Mortal revolves around the struggles of Eric (Nat Wolff), a young, itinerant American living in Norway and a lost soul. Years ago, Eric was the center of a tragedy that involved the deaths of multiple people and has been homeless and doing his best to stay away from people ever since. Strange, dangerous powers he can’t control plague his existence, which is a miserable one scrounging whatever scraps he can in isolation.
When another fatal accident happens with Eric at the center, he’s taken into custody by Norwegian police and questioned by a young psychologist, Christine (Iben Akerle). They soon form a bond, Christine being the only one to believe Eric isn’t a cold-blooded killer. Eric escapes, and Christine flees with him while American and Norwegian authorities give chase. As they go underground, Eric begins to tap into and control his powers with Christine’s encouragement. But discovering the source of his powers may come with a price that’s too high for Eric to pay and forces us to question where we draw the line between hero and villain.
Mortal is no Marvel or DC comic book movie. But for fans of the genre, or for anyone who loves a good character drama wrapped in the trappings of genre, is it worth a watch? Here are three reasons to check out Mortal when it hits screens big and small this weekend.
1. It Offers A Fresh Take On The Superhero Origin Story
Comic book movies are about as bankable a genre there is, and with good reason. Even if you love most of them, as I do, it’s hard to argue the big tentpole movies of the genre are all rather formulaic. So when a director comes along and offers up something fresh, a new twist to the genre, I appreciate it. That’s exactly what Øvredal has accomplished with Mortal, offering an unflinchingly realistic take in an unrealistic genre. The story isn’t an anesthetized, family-friendly romp but a candid and oftentimes brutally honest view of what it might be like for a person to actually acquire superpowers in the real world.
Wisely, Øvredal tackles this on two fronts, both in terms of the physical transformation Eric undergoes as well as the mental and emotional turmoil of navigating a strange and terrifying situation. Eric’s body is a mass of raw, oozing burns and old scars, not a sculpted wonderland of rippling abs but a pile of charred hamburger meat that underscores how little our frail, human bodies would be able to harness the enormous amounts of elemental power suddenly coursing through them.
Eric’s emotional transformation is just as important, too. In typical superhero movies, characters briefly struggle with not wanting responsibility or death but rebound quickly and easily. Eric, however, is traumatized and it shows. Half-feral when we meet him, even after he opens up he’s a bundle of nervous energy and panic attacks and with reason. There is no Avengers or Justice League in the world of Mortal: Eric’s only options are being killed, becoming a lab rat, or navigating what’s happening to him ultimately alone. It’s a far different take than we normally see in the superhero origin story and Øvredal handles it with a depth that illustrates his philosophical bent and interest in creating character studies wrapped in the trappings of genre films.
2. It’s A Visually Beautiful Film
One thing you quickly notice when watching Mortal: This is as much an environmentalist movie as it is a superhero movie or a drama. The wilderness of Norway is as much a character in the film as Eric and Christine, the pristine foil to Eric’s physical deterioration. The homage to the natural world is everywhere, from the sweeping panoramic vistas of Nordic fjords, to close-ups of water dripping off trees, to the curving landscape of mountains. Even when showcasing Eric’s powers, there’s exquisite attention paid to getting the details of elemental forces correct on scales both huge and tiny. It’s visually stunning to see Eric standing on a bridge and calling down lightning for the first time, massive bolts of white-hot electricity streaming from the dark, roiling clouds above and charring the ground. But in Øvredal’s attentive eye, and that of cinematographer Roman Osin, even the tiniest details get turned into things of beauty. Water droplets suspended over a glass controlled by Eric’s power turn into an intricate dance, fire-filled embers glowing in the heart of a burned tree mesmerize.
In an interview, I asked Øvredal how he approached the deceptively stunning visuals of the movie. He explained it was a matter of doing as much practically as possible and then augmenting it with CGI. It shows. It’s become trendy in recent years for film buffs to bash movies that rely heavily on CGI; I’m not one of them. Still, it’s undeniable that using as many practical effects as possible grounds the story in the physical world and makes it feel real in a way other superhero movies simply do not. We know when we see Spider-Man swinging through Manhattan or the Batmobile spinning out on a studio soundstage that it’s a fantasy world. The world of Mortal, however, feels as though it’s tangible, real, Eric’s powers so closely tied to nature and the elements that it’s easy to imagine the story unfolding in our actual reality.
3. It Asks Real Questions Of The Audience
Superheroes are good. Even when they’re “bad,” it’s a “bad” in quotation marks. Villains are bad, period. It’s a narrative we’ve been told our whole lives through comic books, through television, through movies. Mortal asks us to question all of that by reminding us of one true fact: Before superheroes are heroes, they’re humans. And humans are above all else fallible.
Eric is anxiety-riddled, often sullen, emotionally wounded and not always stable. Credit goes to Wolff for his performance which is a balance between young and an old soul, a victim and menacing. Eric is not a heroic archetype but a kicked dog who cringes when he sees a boot, later slowly coming out of his shell. There is no driving sense of noble duty or thoughts of turning his skills to heroism, but the miserable existence of someone just trying to survive. While he feels an obligation to stay far away from people so as not to hurt them, he has no real drive to figure out the origin of his powers or to learn how to control them. It’s not until he meets Christine that he comes back to life. Still, he’s more easily swayed the dark side of all awe-inspiring power and it’s a fascinating dynamic that we don’t often see on screen. Is he a danger to himself and others? Is he a hero or a villain? Can he get his emotions and his powers under control? Does he even want to? And will he do the right thing? The answers to those questions aren’t always clear, making for a compelling story that forces us to question the nature of hero and villain, of good and evil, and just how we’d react if we were trapped in Eric’s position ourselves.
In the end, Mortal offers up an introspective and often brutally realistic superhero origin story with an ending I’ll be thinking about for a while. This is one to watch.
Mortal is in theaters and on digital on Friday, November 6.
