I must say I was excited entering Against the Ice. It has a captivating premise centered on an Arctic expedition at the northern end of Greenland circa 1909, is based on the autobiographical account of Captain Ejnar Mikkelsen, and deals with a nearly three-year survival opposite extreme weather conditions, isolation, and polar bears. Director Peter Flinth ratcheted my anticipation even higher during the opening scene, dropping us into the action as Mikkelsen (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who also co-adapted the screenplay with Joe Derrick) is sledging back to camp with his second-in-command Jörgensen (Gísli Örn Garðarsson) in desperate need of medical attention for frostbitten toes. The filmmakers skip past all exposition to get right to the meat of their adventure. I buckled myself in.
For a time they make good on that promise. Its opening act is effectively structured, introducing characters (men who have been on Mikkelsen’s crew multiple times and the green newcomer, Joe Cole’s mechanic Iver Iversen, picked up in Iceland when their ship needed engine work), explaining the reasons for being in the ice (claiming the body and findings of Mikkelsen’s old friend who never returned home after being tasked to prove America’s claim on part of the island was void a few years earlier), and setting the stage for what’s to follow. How can you not get pulled in by the intrigue of a grizzled veteran and enthusiastic, naïve amateur teaming up to do the impossible? The potential for tense drama and action is boundless.
But the unfortunate truth of the matter is that, like this duo’s supplies, returns diminish with every passing day. In that first scene of Mikkelsen returning to camp with one sledge and minimal dogs we’re prepared for a reality where the room for chaos shrinks exponentially. The less weight you carry, the fewer dogs you need. The fewer dogs you have, the fewer sledges are required. The weather is always cold, the distance always long, the food always sparse, but eventually we’re left with two men praying they’ll make it a little bit further. Maybe a bear will come and jolt us awake with some violence; maybe Iversen’s inexperience threatens grievous injury to body and provisions. That adversity only sustains us so long.
It puts a lot of pressure on the second half to maintain a similar level of heightened adventure, which it simply cannot meet. That’s not to say it’s bad or that it ruins what came before, though. I do believe Against the Ice is a success insofar as it shows ability to memorialize these unsung heroes braving elements to do right by their people—even if “doing right” is colonialism, putting a damper on the whole ordeal. In its familiarity and back-heavy construction, the story just isn’t as spellbinding as one may believe. I wonder if things might have improved by expanding the expedition and compressing the waiting. Give us more The Revenant and less The Lighthouse (reductively speaking).
Though there are some wonderful scenes in that waiting. There’s the dream of a beautiful savior (Heida Reed’s Naja) landing a hot air balloon outside their camp; there’s the joy of fixing a record player for entertainment (if you’re going to be stranded for years in one place, having someone that can repair everything is definitely a plus). Through these do get to see Ejnar and Iver connecting on a human level they never reached when out on the ice and duty-bound by a military-based power structure. Yet too many of these moments feel like vignettes rather than sustained progression. Where the suspense of being in the elements propelled us forward, we ultimately find ourselves losing our minds from the monotony alongside these characters.
If constantly shifting to Denmark to watch Jörgensen fight with politicians (including Charles Dance’s Neergaard) helps break things up, their interactions are no less repetitive when one wants to do whatever is necessary to go back while the other refuses to spend tax money on a third expedition to acquire what he believes should have taken one. The stilted nature of both back-and-forths is thankfully saved by performances of all involved, acting a consistent strong point of Against the Ice. It needs to be; so much of the runtime is spent with Coster-Waldau and Cole. We need to believe in their evolution as well as their unavoidable flaws. Where strength of will was necessary on the ice, strength of mind is paramount for the rest.
Making the latter as interesting as the former is rather difficult; you can’t just throw tragedy into the mix and see what happens. Where cliffs and bears (the CGI isn’t great, but not onscreen long enough to matter) can get your pulse pounding, the usual deterioration of sanity often proves more tedious than suspenseful. And its rapid shift through days, like chapters in Mikkelsen’s book, does little to let us sit with the characters as more than pawns hitting checkpoints on their way to salvation or death. Wondering if Mikkelsen kills Iversen courtesy his delusions—before starvation takes them both—is more academic than impactful when it doesn’t really matter. Thrills become reenactment; promise becomes missed opportunity.
Against the Ice is now streaming on Netflix.