Against The Ice Review

The first mistake I made going into Against the Ice was that I got attached to the dogs, the second mistake I made was assuming I’d have any idea what was going on throughout any of the film. Against The Ice is a survival movie, based on the true events following the Denmark Expedition, the film tracks Captain Ejner Mikkelson (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Iver Iversen (Joe Cole) as they battle the Arctic in the search for the reports on the status of the Peary Channel. Directed by Peter Flinth, and written by Joe Derrick and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the three combined create a heart-wrenching yet epically beautiful film about brotherhood and hope when all hope seems to be lost.

As with all films based on true events, there’s a point where you must remind yourself that this is a realistic representation of a very dangerous mission, not a blockbuster created to deafen the audience with explosions and particularly unrealistic consequences to very normal actions. Namely, my very wrong expectation of a bear-ripping-human sequence midway through (a questionable thought considering this film is based on that character’s recordings of the events). Even without a dramatic death scene, if you don’t count the dogs which were dramatic enough, I think; they were very cute dogs they did not deserve to die thank you very much, Against the Ice still manages to keep you hooked with the horrors the characters did face. There will always be something that makes my heart ache when watching a man slowly turn insane, and I genuinely shouted when the two returned to find the rest of their team had abandoned them.

There is no fault that Against the Ice was visually perfect, shot on location in Greenland and Iceland, the film captured the jaw-dropping beauty of nature and the unshakeable power it holds against two miniscule creatures. The acting was unmistakeable, Cole’s child-like excitement in Iversen erupted the same ‘if only you knew’ grumpiness in me that was obvious in Mikkelsen’s face. You could see as the conditions caught up to him as the film went on, going from question after question to being the one that held himself and Mikkelsen together. The hope in his eyes replaced by an acceptance that this was it for them, stranded in the ice, hurt me in a way I wasn’t expecting at all. Similarly, with Coster-Waldau, he did wonderfully to portray this ‘unsung hero’ of Danish history in a way you could start to understand the psychological and physiological pressure of an exploration, emphasis on the start because I’m sure something like that is beyond anything I could ever imagine. I’d be lying if I said the nerd in me didn’t come out wanting to know what was left from the recount of events.

I think the biggest thing that caught me off guard about this movie, was the sincerity and innocence of the relationship between Mikkelsen and Naja, considering she doesn’t show up until the homerun of the film, Filnth does expertly to showcase that Mikkelsen is enamoured entirely by Naja. It adds another layer to the character that makes this hard-stoned character more relatable, that under the tough face, he is still at his core completely human after so many years isolated in the ice.

All in all, considering this movie would never have been something I’d pick from the Netflix homepage, and I went in wrongly expecting a much more theatrical climax, it cannot be denied that Against the Ice is a work of art. And I say that sincerely ignoring the fact I think I had my leg up blocking the tv more times than I could count on one hand because I thought something was about to gross me out or another bloody animal was about to be shown.