The Norwegian fantasy monster film on Netflix, Troll, presents the very simple question of what could have been if trolls from folklore actually existed in reality and suddenly found themselves trapped in a modern world all too foreign and triggering to them. The plot follows paleontologist Nora Tidemann, who is unexpectedly called up for a meeting with the prime minister when a gigantic monster seems to have crawled out from an under-construction tunnel. While Troll is predictable and silly, it can still be immensely entertaining for fans of lighthearted fantasy adventures, especially since a sequel to the film is almost around the corner.
Spoiler Alert
What is the film about?
The film begins atop the Troll Peaks in Romsdalen, Norway, where a young girl and her father stop for a much-deserved break after climbing for hours. Young Nora and her father, Tobias, are out on an adventure, which is quite a common exercise for them, and the latter soon asks her to look out towards the mountains in front of them and think about the origin of their name. According to folk legend, 13 drunk trolls at a troll wedding lost track of time because of their inebriation and ended up getting exposed to the rising sun, which turned them into mountains. These 13 trolls apparently turned into the 13 faces of the Troll Peaks, and upon her father’s insistence, Nora even happens to see their faces in the rocks for a moment through her imagination. 20 years later, the same girl is now Nora Tidemann, a hardworking and determined paleontologist, leading an expedition in Northwestern Norway to find dinosaur remains on the Atlantic Coast.
Around the same time, a controversial excavation project is taking place at the Dovre Mountains, where the government has allowed the construction of a railway project through the mountains, despite heavy protests from the citizens residing in the area who are concerned about the ecological impact. A tunnel is being drilled through the mountain even while protestors gather near the site, and the workers almost take an arrogant pleasure in causing destruction to the environment right in front of the protestors’ eyes. But something unexpected happens when a sudden loud roar inside the tunnel makes the workers scramble out.
Over the next few minutes, something large and menacing comes crashing out of the tunnel, even leaving gigantic footprints on the valley around the area. In order to understand what is suddenly happening, the government soon seeks the help of Nora Tidemann, making her the consultant scientist. But Nora has no idea what discovery awaits her, and how it is finally going to prove that her father had been right all along.
How is the existence of the troll confirmed?
When Nora is first brought in to attend the top-secret meeting among the heads of the various government departments, chaired by the prime minister herself, she is confused about the urgency of the matter. But very soon, video footage of the creature that had seemingly crawled out of the tunnel is found among the personal phones of one of the protestors who had been at the site. In this video, a shadowy figure, more than 150 feet tall, can be seen in the background, and the craters in the ground found near the area do seem to be the footprints of the same figure. It is still too early for Nora to say anything conclusive, even though she starts to have an inkling of what supernatural creature might have suddenly woken up from hibernation. Just a few minutes later, the authorities are alerted of another strange situation in a mountainside town, where something massive has completely destroyed the house of a local family. Nora and her new companions, Andreas Isaksen, the PM’s secretary, and Kristoffer Holm, a soldier in the Norwegian military, fly out to the area to look into the matter.
It is quite evident from the destruction that something massive must have trundled all over the house, destroying it in the process, and gigantic footsteps around the place similar to the ones before further support this theory. This is when Nora finally decides to consult her father regarding the matter, since he had done extensive research on cryptids and creatures from the local folklore of the region. Despite the two meeting after an extremely long time, indicating their estranged relationship, Tobias agrees to help his daughter solve the mystery, although more out of his own interest to prove his theories than any earnest desire to help her out. Together, they return to the spot where the footprints had mysteriously vanished at an open spot in the valley, with no caves or hiding spots in the vicinity.
This is when Nora and Tobias come to the same conclusion, having been thinking of the same suspect for a long time but not speaking its name out loud because of the sheer absurdity of the theory. Nora has a very strong hunch that they are dealing with an ogre, or a troll, straight from Nordic mythology, as the creatures were believed to be able to hide in plain sight and camouflage in the mountains because of their rocky and natural structure. In fact, when Nora had tried to scan the area of the attack earlier for any biological traces, she was unable to find any. This was seemingly because of the legend that trolls’ bodies are actually made up of earthly matters like rock and soil, and they are indistinguishable except for their unique odor, which Nora keeps calling ‘hypernatural.’ At the spot of the creature’s supposed disappearance, Tobias finds unnatural topography, which has no mention in his accurate maps. Very soon, they realize that they have been standing atop the body of a troll that had laid down to hide or rest. As the gigantic creature gets up and tries to attack the army helicopters, footage of it is captured, and its existence is finally proven.
How does Nora lose her father?
Troll also takes pains to include tales of personal loss and estrangement in its plot, through Nora’s woes in her personal life. As is revealed gradually, Nora had lost her mother at a young age, only some time after the events from the very beginning of the film. Unfortunately, she also lost her father in spirit on the day of her mother’s death, as Tobias was unable to bear the grief of losing his beloved wife. While he was already a bit too keen on researching cryptids and trying to prove that trolls actually once existed on Earth thousands of years back, this extreme grief turned him completely blind to every other matter in life. As a result, he emotionally abandoned Nora as well, only pushing her to join him in his adventures to prove the historical existence of trolls, and she gradually grew very distant towards him.
It can be sensed during their first meeting after all these many years that Nora has a personal grudge against her father’s desire to prove the existence of trolls, as she angrily exclaims that paleontologists like herself would have surely found some proof of their existence by now. This anger and resentment is not really directed against the trolls but her father, who had selfishly turned away from her after her mother’s death. Thankfully, the father and daughter have a heartwarming reunion when they both acknowledge their mistakes, with Tobias accepting his failure to be a good dad and apologizing for his past decisions, and Nora realizing that her father had been right about the trolls all along. But Tobias unfortunately meets his end very soon, almost in a predestined manner, having dedicated his entire life to proving the existence of trolls only to be killed by one.
As the government decides to deal with the troll problem with violence and orders the army to carry out missile and tank attacks on the creature, Nora and Tobias also join the scene, not to partake in the planned slaughter but to study the troll. When all means of attack fail, Tobias directly runs out to the troll and starts talking to it, trying to befriend it and convince it that he does not mean any harm. Surprisingly, the troll does stand and listen to him without any intention to attack, and Tobias once again proves his point about the fantastical creatures being supremely intelligent and having the ability to understand human emotions as well. However, when an artillery gun is fired at the troll at this very moment, it gets distracted and almost impulsively swats Tobias away, without really intending to do him any harm. Unfortunately, this effortless swat is enough to fatally injure Tobias, and the man dies a few minutes later, meaning that Nora has now lost her father in body as well.
What is the real reason behind the troll’s attacks?
When Nora solves the mystery of the last words that Tobias had spoken before his death, she finally realizes that her father had been right about the troll’s real intentions behind its attacks. The fantastical creatures are not aggressive by nature, but they do not care about what lies in their path once instigated and hurt. The monster in question, the Troll King, had been awoken and disturbed enough to make him leave his nest deep under the Dovre Mountains during the drilling of the tunnel for the railway project. As he crawled out of his spot and found himself in a world that had completely changed, the troll started attacking people who tried to stop his march towards the capital, Oslo. Interestingly, the troll keeps ensuring, on multiple occasions, that it does not hurt or injure young children or parents with their children, and this is linked to its own tragic story.
Before his death, Tobias tells Nora to find and speak to Rikard Sinding, the Lord Chamberlain of the Royal Palace in Oslo, who eventually reveals a major secret. The matter first began with the Christianization of Norway, back in the 10th century, when Olav the Holy wanted to get rid of anything that went against Christian values, including the trolls, which did not fit his religious narrative. He and his soldiers launched an ambush on the lair of the trolls, killing all the creatures, including young trolls. But they saved one helpless troll child, just to lure the Troll King out and into a spot deep inside the Dovre Mountains, where it was trapped for centuries. When the Royal Palace had been constructed in 1849, it was considered lucky to build a royal palace on top of another king’s home, and so the abandoned home, or lair, was selected to be the site of the construction. According to Troll, the home of the Troll King and the skeletal remains of his children can still be found underneath the Royal Palace in Oslo.
The construction of the tunnel at the Dovre Mountains had helped the Troll King escape his centuries-long imprisonment, following which he only intends to walk back to the Royal Palace in Oslo, or rather his home, to reunite with his children. Essentially, the Troll King is just a highly dedicated family man who wants to be together with his children, and this is the reason why he never lets young children or their parents get injured, for he relates with them. Some 15 years back, Tobias had actually stumbled upon the horrific secret about the Royal Palace’s construction and had tried to expose the truth to everyone, which was when the royal family categorically targeted him and proved him senile so that nobody would believe his claims. But now that the Troll King has finally managed to escape, he is headed straight towards the Royal Palace, and so Oslo is evacuated in just a few minutes’ time.
Can the troll be stopped?
The government and the military hatch a violent and senseless plan to nuke the Troll King, which would not only kill the helpless beast but also completely destroy Oslo and other neighboring cities. Nora and her friends obviously see how the plan is just a desperate attempt to stop the creature, and so she comes up with her own plan to do the same thing much more effectively. Earlier, a specific legend about trolls hating the sound of Christian bells had been used to distract it, which had proved that the Troll King could indeed be stopped by exploiting similar legends. Nora now relies on a legend that says that trolls cannot live in sunlight and realizes that although the creature had been spotted during daytime on multiple occasions, it was never seen in direct sunlight, as he had come out only on dark and gloomy days.
Thus, Nora asks her friend from the army, Captain Kristoffer Holm, to gather a few of his soldier friends and set up a large source of bright light at an open space. He brings together hundreds of solar light panels on an open field, while Nora catches the attention of the Troll King with the help of the skull of one of its murdered children. As the skull breaks sometime during the chase, the Troll King goes fully into rage mode, almost promising himself to destroy everything and everyone responsible for having killed his children. But Nora finally manages to get the Troll King to the field, where the solar light panels are switched on together. The light beam is not only very strong, but it also has the same characteristics as sunlight, which means that the troll gets caught up in the light and is finally stopped in its tracks.
Why does Nora try to protect the troll?
Something that Nora used to initially hate about her father but had eventually come to like about him was the respect and admiration that he had for trolls, seeing them as a part of nature no different from humans or other animals. Through her personal experiences, she had also learned how the trolls did not actually mean any harm to the humans, and how the Troll King had, in fact, tried his best to be careful to not injure or harm innocent children. Therefore, when Nora soon realizes that the light will overpower the troll very quickly and kill it, she feels the need to save the fantastical creature instead of letting it die. Despite the others, including her friends, believing that it would be best to kill the Troll King, Nora disagrees and decides to help him out by switching off all the light panels. She then tries her best to convince the creature to leave the city and go back to the mountains, promising that humans will not disturb him anymore. The Troll King even seems to understand, but before he can take any decision, the sun starts to rise, bringing fresh and much stronger sunlight. Ultimately, the Troll King is fatally injured by the real sunlight, which Nora cannot stop even if she wants to, and he collapses to the ground and dies.
What to expect from the Sequel?
However, Troll also ends with a short mid-credits scene, where we are taken back to the now abandoned tunnel construction in the Dovre Mountains. Deep inside the tunnel, a pile of heavy rocks suddenly moves and scatters as something gigantic comes out from underneath while making a loud roar. This confirms that there are more trolls alive that will now resurface and wreak havoc on human society in Troll 2. It might also be possible that some other creatures from Norwegian folklore, and not just trolls in particular, will appear in the sequel film, and Nora Tidemann will once again be appointed to solve the mystery and save Norway from a gigantic monster.
