‘What Remains’ Review – A Few Skarsgårds Search for the Truth in Ran Huang’s Serial Killer Drama

How can someone be described as a person “previously believed to have been a serial killer”? It’s a fraught notion, unsettling and marred with confusion, particularly for those who thought the murderer of their loved one had been caught and rightly brought to justice. But in the peculiar case of Sture Bergwall – the man previously believed to have been the most notorious serial killer in Sweden’s history – it’s the truth. Bergwall, known by the name of Thomas Quick from 1993 to 2002, confessed to more than 30 murders, and was convicted of eight while living as a patient at Säter’s institution for the criminally insane. He claimed to have maimed, raped, and eaten the remains of his many victims. Then, thanks to some extensive outside research that uncovered how weak the evidence to convict Bergwall was, as well as his own realization of the truth, he withdrew all of the confessions in 2008. By 2013, he had been acquitted of every crime. He’s no longer a patient at Säter.

As The Guardian’s Elizabeth Day wrote in her 2012 interview with Bergwall, it all “reads like a real-life Scandinavian crime novel,” a feeling Ran Huang evidently latched onto when it came to making his feature-length debut, What Remains, now available on VOD after having premiered at the Locarno Film Festival last year. Though it’s not quite an exact retelling of Bergwall’s story, the thematic through-lines that Huang implements into his film are unmistakable if you have a passing knowledge of a notorious-if-specific story. Yet it should still succeed for viewers who lack that awareness, unfolding as a methodical mystery about a serial killer who may or may not be the monster he has admitted to being. 

The film’s opening moments introduce us to a man formerly known as Sigge Storm who now goes by Mads Lake (Gustav Skarsgård), a former psychiatric patient seemingly based on Bergwall. He’s just been released from the hospital and hopes to build a new life with a new name, one not connected to the crimes he’s confessed to committing. But as more details begin to paint a broader picture of this man, most notably the fact that he’s molested nine boys – at least according to the documents his therapist, Anna Rudebeck (Andrea Riseborough), has on hand – the more complex Huang’s structure becomes. When Soren Rank (Stellan Skarsgård), a detective who has been assigned to Storm/Lake’s case, turns up to interview the accused, the patient-therapist-cop trio begin attempting to reconstruct history in an effort to figure out what really happened, i.e. whether or not Lake is truly guilty of the crimes he said he did, or if something more complicated and sinister is afoot.

In a way, of course, the truth of the case has been spoiled for you if you’ve read this review’s opening paragraph. But Huang and his co-writer, Megan Everett-Skarsgård – a family affair for Sweden’s finest, What Remains is just missing Bill and Alex – are hardly interested in straightforward storytelling. Not only does the film take a few non-linear detours with its narrative, but it offers hypotheticals aplenty in the form of historical revisionism, a misdirected portrayal of something that may or may not actually be happening as we see it. Huang slowly places more pieces of the puzzle in plain sight, lending opportunities for each of his three central performers to showcase emotional range depending on their discoveries. Gustav Skarsgård, in particular, excels in the lead role, vacillating violently between a man hell-bent on proving himself to be an unhinged criminal and a confused ex-patient with a desire to prove his innocence. If only it were so simple.

The dismal depths to which What Remains is willing to go makes it that much more intricate a work, impressive for any feature, much more so for a debut. It asks questions about the very idea of innocence – whether or not someone can be innocent of a heinous act if they’re willing to admit to it; if forgiveness of wrongdoing is really the goal given that pain and torture were suffered by someone, and that no crime is a victimless one. More than a traditional thriller about deduction and reason, it’s a film that explores exactly what its title posits: What remains when we’ve lost everything we knew to be true, even if that loss was brought on by our own wrongdoing, which in and of itself was brought on by manipulation? Perhaps Huang and Everett-Skarsgård could’ve explained a bit more in the process of crafting what is ultimately an overly-ambiguous enigma, but with that ambiguity comes a film that is far deeper and more thoughtful than it may have the right to be. Though that’s not always a feature, it’s certainly not a bug in this case.

What Remains is currently playing in select theaters and is available on Digital platforms courtesy of VMI Releasing.