Focus Features continues their collaboration with auteur writer-director Robert Eggers with Nosferatu. The film is one of many adaptations of Bram Stoker’s 127-year-old novel. The film immediate transfixes audiences with an incredible (and lengthy) one shot where Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen rises from the bed.
The sequence shows where she pledges herself to the dormant, undead spirit of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) — whose silhouette is intimidating in the flowing fabrics by Ellen’s window. Ellen gives herself to Orlok in what feels like a fever-dream and this is a decision that haunts her throughout the remaining story.
A young actress on the rise, Depp delivers an incredibly visceral performance throughout this Victorian-era film. The film jumps many years into the future where Ellen is newlywed to an inexperienced solicitor named Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult).
Thomas wishes to rise in the ranks and earn the money needed to give his bride the life she deserves. Their relationship is stiff on the screen, without a hint of chemistry, and the dialect does not ease an audience’s ability to care for this young couple.
There are dark forces at play, as Count Orlok has a devoted follower working at Thomas’ company, who sends Thomas to Transylvania to finalize a deal with Skarsgard’s Count Orlok to buy a dreary property in their German town. Closing this paperwork means a big commission for the young employee and so he reluctantly agrees to make the lengthy trek.
Along the way, Thomas runs into a gypsy run camp where they have experience killing vampires through the heart. Thomas appears to find them in action, but wakes up in his bed wondering if it was all a hallucination (though the mud on his boots would signal the events were real).
The gypsy folk are gone when he comes to and he is left with a sense that there are dark forces at play. Back home, Depp’s Ellen grows worse in her melancholy and her friends try to help her with local medicine and a more outside-the-box specialist in Willem Dafoe’s Professor Von-Franz.
Von-Franz recognizes the trance and begins to piece the plot together of Nosferatu being on the loose, that he has a henchman who has slaughtered a man and escaped the mental institution, and that the growing rat plague is all related.
At the same time, Thomas is help captive by Orlok and bled frequently. Only during a later feeding does he realize that Orlok is a vampire and pure evil. His escape attempt ends leads to a “fake-out” death but Thomas is ultimately revived by the gypsy folk he met earlier and he rides back home to try and protect Ellen.
Ellen’s haze of melancholy is full on at this stage, often bedridden, with the occasional interruption of a frightening possession. The physicality Lily-Rose Depp should be championed here — the highlight of the film outside the incredible production design of Craig Lathrop and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke stellar work.
Egger’s script leaving much to be desired in terms of giving any of the characters richness or dimension. We’re watching gorgeous scenes play out with no compassion for the characters or investment in their lives.
The supporting cast of Aaron Taylor Johnson and Emma Corrin feel like BBC costume drama day players, nothing compelling for them to do other than act as hosts for Ellen during her illness and ultimately they parish along with their two daughters in the height of the film’s all-is-lost moment.
Dafoe’s Von-Franz and Depp’s Ellen quietly come to terms with the only way to prevent Orlok from spreading more death and despair, and it’s one of the strongest points of the film as Ellen becomes a tragic hero. It’s a shame that the character wasn’t explore more within the film as the closing beats are quite impressive.
The most in-demand Skarsgard (Bill if you need a reminder) disappears into the role of Orlok thanks to the below the line artists handling the prosthetics, hair, and makeup. The below the line for this film is second to none this awards season, although the December 25th release date may prove to be an obstacle for Nosferatu’s awards season push.
Skarsgard truly exceeds what you could hope for with this roll, a true artist putting his fingerprint on an iconic character and never once leaning into tropes or pushing beyond what is necessary for each moment in the film. He is undoubtedly “in the pocket” as many actors would say.
In many ways, the film reminds you of brilliance of early Tim Burton in the cinema. An artist in his own right, Burton’s focus on production design and building a true environment made an audience differentiate cinema from the real world.
I highly recommend the film as a welcome escape and visual feast, but ultimately the script fails to match the brilliance of the film’s finely crafted sets, transporting sound design, and the ensnaring score that brings Nosferatu to life.
Letter Grade: B+