In 1520, Stockholm witnessed one of the most brutal power struggles in Scandinavian history. Following a tense standoff between Sweden and Denmark, Danish King Christian II invited a group of Swedish nobles to what appeared to be a reconciliation gathering. Instead, he launched a brutal purge that would later become known as the Stockholm Bloodbath — imagine a real life scenario not too far divorced from the “Red Wedding” episode of Game of Thrones. But while that episode is regarded by many as one of the best television entries of all time, Mikael Håfström’s Stockholm Bloodbath, which could roundly be described as a true-history actioner, fails to reach those lofty heights, or even really leave the ground. That’s not to say the film is without ambition; It’s premise would seem primed for grand spectacle and brutal violence, and it begins as a promising saga fixed on two sisters, Anne (Sophie Cookson) and Freja (Alba August), seeking vengeance for their family’s murder. But while Stockholm Bloodbath certainly has plenty on its mind, Håfström’s efforts to wade in the waters of vicious revenge, Machiavellian power struggles, and complex characters are simultaneously handled in both the most dramatic and the most unserious ways possible.
Stockholm Bloodbath‘s most notable failure arrives in its over-stylized approach, leaning into what feels like a Deadpool-ification of the historical action genre. There’s a frenetic approach to the film’s visual character, which is further convoluted by a graphic-heavy approach that frequently plasters text across the screen, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad stylistic choice given different material, but which here is at odds with the film’s self-serious dramatic beats. The cartoonish violence — paired with the stylized, often hyperactive visual effects — makes Stockholm Bloodbath feel more like a superhero parody than high historical drama, with no meaningful translation around to bridge the divide. Where something like Deadpool, regardless of your opinion of its quality, is self-aware and explicitly designed to embrace absurdity, Håfström’s film it outright whiplash-inducing as it moves from playing it straight one moment to angling for laughs the next, which makes the sum feel like cribbed style thoughtlessly shoehorned in only to capitalize on a post-Marvel zeitgeist and cinematic grammar.
The film’s attempt to depict women’s empowerment is also frustratingly shallow. Anne and Freja’s journey is clearly intended to be understood as a story of fierce female agency, but that too falls flat. The script places them in powerful roles, but then does absolutely nothing to establish any complexity of character that would make their revenge arc compelling, leaving its basic narrative structure feeling more like an empty gesture than an earnest attempt at foregrounding women in historical action epics. Indeed, this is instructive as to Stockholm Bloodbath‘s essential flaw: the film is all emptiness — of style, character, and topical discourse — masquerading as substance, and quite unconvincingly at that.
DIRECTOR: Mikael Håfström; CAST: Sophie Cookson, Claes Bang, Alba August, Jacob Oftebro; DISTRIBUTOR: Brainstorm Media; IN THEATERS: November 8; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 58 min.
Comments are closed.