The Marsh King's Daughter
LIONSGATE
The Marsh King’s Daughter comes at an interesting and pivotal time for its star Daisy Ridley as well as director Neil Burger. The two have had major involvements within Hollywood and tasted mainstream success with the blockbuster, yet neither have quite maintained a consistent output of critically or commercially rewarding pieces of work. Out of the two, Ridley has seen a quicker, albeit stalled, level of aforementioned returns with her work within the much-maligned and disappointing Star Wars sequel trilogy, as well as the announced return to that character in the near future. That aside, her filmography hasn’t provided adequate strength to suggest great career choices, with Chaos Walking and Ophelia both financially and critically disappointing and small returns in Murder on the Orient Express and Peter Rabbit. Burger is equally similar to the likes of Limitless, The Illusionist, Divergent and a hopeful break into the award circuit with Bryan Cranston starring in The Upside, have all done reasonably well but Burger has never taken that next step. This is where the two collide in The Marsh King's Daughter, a competent effort in crafting a tense character piece but can’t reach that next level, ironically saying as much for the two careers of Ridley and Burger themselves with little promise and little return.
First and foremost, Burger and the cinematographer Alwin H. Küchler do quite a compelling job of capturing the lush environment and, ultimately, the vast landscape that echoes through the character's arcs and emotional anguish. It’s often vibrant but used through set pieces as cruel, hidden spaces that characters use for their benefit. Above all else, Burger crafts a compelling use of momentum on environment, however the choice of colour grading feels at times far too overpowering and centric on eliciting emotive prowess rather than allowing the cinematography and performances to blossom and take their shape to do what they’re are there for. This ultimately leads to the performances, which are sadly mixed. In certain aspects, Ridley shows craft that is evolving and showing promise to what she’s showcased beforehand. She’s an actress who can, quite formidably, show external emotions – her ability to cry on cue has often been highlighted – but what of the more skilled internal promise she alludes to? Well, here is her chance, and it does show signs mentioned above that there might be something that is on the cusp of coming out. Sadly, it’s not brought to the table. This is a feature that is prominently devised in verbal communication through thoughts and feelings, and Ridley has a sizeable amount of dialogue to wade through to make this character showcase vulnerability and engagement. It is a competent enough performance, but when Ridley has the opportunity to truly strut her stuff in a monologue or antagonistic fashion, it falls severely flat with no nuance or subtlety and a massive swing and a miss in trying to project through physicality that holds no weight or intimidation. Neither does Ridley showcase in the more intimate moments with her on-screen husband – the underused and wasted Garrett Hedlund – which is a relationship that has zero chemistry or charm whatsoever. Even in scenes of tension and atmosphere, Ridley walks through stone faces and comatose expressions that limit that atmosphere and emotional engagement.
It is not unlike the screenplay and writing from Mark L. Smith and Elle Smith does not give enough stomach and emotional discourse for the material to flourish either. A concious and engaging level of depth is provided for emotional abuse that is slowly being digested and processed through its characters and even given promise in engaging monologues on screen to double down and navigate the torment. Alas, when said moments are hit within the film, they go down like a ship with a hole in its hull. One particularly moment with Ridley stepping out in front of her husband’s car to open up – blocked and craft quite poorly – about her past life is so poorly evoked and constructed from a perfomance persepctive its almost laughable to watch develop on screen in such lacklustre conviction.
Made all the more underwhelming is when Mendelsohn comes into proceedings. With all the off-screen and internal torture between the two characters – which the film has built up with convention and narrative – the eventual meeting has no fight, no tension or dramatic scope at all and dies like a whimper on screen, which just feels like such a wasted investment for the audience. Mendelsohn is as competent and engaging as ever, and his more relaxed embodiment feels in turn with the ruthless and vile character that he is, but when it’s the same type of persona that Ridley is proving without the conscious creation nor intention that the former is evoking. His quietness and stoicism craft a feeling of unease and uncomfortable, uncertain power dynamics that the film then somewhat relishes when it changes its tune but chooses often to use this character in its aloof nature through the choice of genre conventions in the guise of a thriller to make a more gripping venture. To its credit, it arguably achieves this very notion with Burger slowing down moments of tension, small details that allude to bigger events but they’re all conventionally curated dynamics that the audience is clear in knowing the truth because they’re shown it, so little tension is created in said sequences aside from building atmosphere which in turn is severely dampened due to the lacklustre performances when the times comes. It perhaps says something that thirteen-year-old Brooklynn Prince playing the younger version of Ridley’s character steals the show with quite a promising performance of vulnerability and internal emotive complications to the character's story arc, and thankfully Burger allows the audience to spend some time with this incarnation of the character to blossom and understand the abusive power dynamic at hand. But once the film cuts forward in time, it’s a steady decline into nothingness with little emotional return.
All in all, The Marsh King’s Daughter sadly all comes down to a lack of performance maturity, but where does the curve begin to ratify and take stock for the likes of Ridley? Repetition is stagnation, and her choosing to go and repeat the same dull process of Rey with another Star Wars entry will do so little for her career and talent that is dying to get out. Both Daniel Radcliffe and Robert Pattinson have hit this milestone within their careers and taken a step back to ratifying a filmography with niche and more auteur work that not only leads to the likes of growing as an individual but also a performer, and Ridley shows little sign of that progression – aside from working with Judd Apatow. It will truly pain to see a talented British actress like Daisy Ridley, who has so much scope, derail into nothingness if her choices of work do not improve wholeheartedly and the demand to test oneself with the likes of Sally Potter, Lynne Ramsay, Cronenberg, Safdie, etc all eager to work with new and upcoming talent, and who wouldn’t want to work with a sizeable star? Only time will tell, but it’s fleeting nevertheless.
