Directed by: Neil Burger
Distributed by: Lionsgate
Written by Alexander Reams
38/100
The idea of the “Star Wars” curse has been around since the original trilogy released as most of the cast did not go on to have notable careers. The prequel trilogy employed more well-known performers within its ensemble, and it wasn’t until post- “Rise of Skywalker” that the talk of the curse came back. Both of the “leads” of the sequel trilogy, Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, have not had a hit since the trilogy finished, but the sign of their name on a project still provides a level of intrigue because “someone from Star Wars is in it.” Most “bad” films have certain signs like stories of a troubled production, but a production with Daisy Ridley and Ben Mendelsohn leading the call sheet and a competent filmmaker like Neil Burger behind the camera, that adapts a popular novel that looks gorgeous (no really, it captures the marsh environment much better than last years “Where the Crawdads Sing”) shouldn’t be a misfire, right?
Unfortunately “The Marsh King’s Daughter” is almost completely inept. The scale between over and under-explaining leans much heavier toward the latter. And it’s a damn shame too, because there is a good movie somewhere in the 108-minute runtime. Daisy Ridley stars as Helena Pelletier, “daughter” of Jacob (Ben Mendelsohn). We meet them during a hunt in their secluded home in the woods. After this fairly competent prologue (except for being too long), which exists only to foreshadow the dynamic between an older Helena (Ridley), and Jacob. At the time of the prologue, Helena is 10 (performed here, and in flashbacks by Brooklynn Prince) and we discover that in the first 10 years of her life her “father” actually kidnapped both Helena and her mother.
If this sounds complicated, it is. Burger stays in this prologue for such an extended time that the shock of the reality takes far too long to set in, and a serious amount of time has passed in the story before it’s fully processed. The disjointed pacing continues throughout Ridley’s best attempt at an American accent, but when she has scenes with her husband, Stephen Pelletier (Garrett Hedlund), they exhibit great chemistry. Unfortunately, the time devoted to her relationship with her daughter, Marigold, though not overlong is greatly misplaced within the grander flow of the film. The focus of the mother/daughter relationship should have been at the film’s center, instead of a disjointed revenge narrative that Ridley can never fully sell with her relationship to her daughter at the very edge of the film. By the time the hollow finale happens, it feels extremely rushed and undeserved in many ways, from cliched showdown between Ridley and Mendelsohn, that truly tests the weak bounds of Ridley’s American accent.
“The Marsh King’s Daughter” Trailer
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