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If you’re in the mood to watch Mads Mikkelsen silently battle the forces of nature, good news: Arctic, the 2018 survival drama directed by Joe Penna, is now streaming on Amazon Prime, free for all Prime subscribers.
The film, which was written by Penna and Ryan Morrison, was a joint production between American and Icelandic film companies. Mikkelsen, a Danish actor best known for playing Dr. Hannibal Lecter on the short-lived but critically acclaimed NBC series Hannibal, plays a pilot named Overgård who is stranded somewhere in the Arctic Circle, waiting to be rescued. Every day he does what he can to survive: Fish, map his surroundings, and signal for help with an electric generator. Eventually, a helicopter does come to rescue him—a pilot (Tintrinai Thikhasuk) and a passenger (Maria Thelma Smáradóttir)—but things don’t go as planned. Think Cast Away, 127 Hours, or Into the Wild, only terribly, unrelentingly cold.
The film originally premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival to positive reviews. Indiewire‘s David Ehrlich went as far as to call it “one of the best movies ever made about a man stranded in the wilderness,” a quote so good it earned a spot on the film’s official poster. Though some other critics loved the film slightly less, most agreed that the highlight was Mikkelsen’s performance, which is always a crucial element of any survival film in which most of the protagonist’s screen-time is spent solo. Because there’s hardly any dialogue, it’s also a story that’s easily accessible to non-English speakers, a bonus for Icelandic and Danish viewers. The entire film took just 19 days to shoot, but in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, Mikkelsen called it the most difficult shoot of his career. Apparently, being cold is a lot harder than eating people!
The film had a limited theatrical release in February, where it screened in just 268 theaters nationwide. Perhaps that’s one reason Mikkelsen was overlooked come awards season, unlike actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, and James Franco who have taken on similar roles. Now that the film is streaming on Amazon, we suspect it will find a larger audience. Just make sure you’re curled up with a blanket and a steaming cup of hot cocoa before you hit play.
