Ooph, that was so much worse than I was hoping for. Either that, or it was comedy gold. I can't tell because I kept bursting into laughter at all the non sequiturs, the poor editing choices, and the ill-constructed story threads. (A protagonist can be illogical, a story can be loaded with magical realism, but the writers better know what's what, and Eggers and Sjón seemed, to me, to be utterly lost.) More than anything I guffawed at every over-the-top screen moment of grunting, shouting, man-thumping, all of which I was, I suppose, supposed to take seriously.
No spoilers (though there's little to spoil here), but what The Northman gave us was a picture-perfect portrayal of toxic masculinity, of emotional non-intelligence, and of everything a father-to-be should never, ever do.
Sjón is a national treasure of Iceland. Eggers's The Lighthouse was an arthouse marvel. His The VVitch was a work of genius. The Northman? Wow, what a flop of groaning but-not-grown-up man-meat passing as a "film." I hope the artists got what they wanted out of this, but wow... not the best work of these two creatives.