The Dead Don’t Hurt: Viggo Mortensen is out for vengeance in trailer for Western he wrote & directed

Shout! Studios have released the first trailer for The Dead Don’t Hurt, a Western starring Viggo Mortensen, who also wrote, directed, produced, and composed the music for the film.

As a big Western fan, I’m always eager to check out a new entry in the genre, and it looks like I’ll have to check out The Dead Don’t Hurt, as the trailer paints a dark, gritty story with some powerful performances. The film follows Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps), a fiercely independent woman who starts a relationship with Holger Olsen (Mortenson), a Danish immigrant. They start a life together, but when Olsen leaves to fight in the Civil War, Vivenne is left to fend for herself.

This marks Mortenson’s second time behind the camera, as he made his feature directorial debut with Falling, a 2020 drama which followed a middle-aged gay man who moves his homophobic father (Lance Henriksen) to the home he shares with his husband after he starts showing symptoms of dementia.

Our own Chris Bumbray caught The Dead Don’t Hurt at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and quite enjoyed it. While he admits that the plot is “pretty old school,” he also said that it’s never been done in the style Mortenson uses. “It works as a solid Western and modern deconstruction of the genre,” Bumbray wrote. “The performances are terrific, and the story comes to a haunting, unexpected end that will stick with you long after the credits roll.” You can check out the rest of Bumbray’s review right here.

The official logline reads: “The Dead Don’t Hurt is a story of star-crossed lovers on the western U.S. frontier in the 1860s. Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps) is a fiercely independent woman who embarks on a relationship with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen (Viggo Mortensen). After meeting Olsen in San Francisco, she agrees to travel with him to his home near the quiet town of Elk Flats, Nevada, where they start a life together. The outbreak of the civil war separates them when Olsen makes a fateful decision to fight for the Union. This leaves Vivienne to fend for herself in a place controlled by corrupt Mayor Rudolph Schiller (Danny Huston) and his unscrupulous business partner, powerful rancher Alfred Jeffries (Garrett Dillahunt). Alfred’s violent, wayward son Weston (Solly McLeod) aggressively pursues Vivienne, who is determined to resist his unwanted advances. When Olsen returns from the war, he and Vivienne must confront and make peace with the person each has become.“

The Dead Don’t Hurt will open on approximately 500 screens nationwide on May 31st.