THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER – Review by Valerie Kalfrin
For most of her adult life, Helena has felt cleaved in two, unsure of where she belongs. In one of the more powerful moments from The Marsh King’s Daughter, Daisy Ridley as Helena stands illuminated in headlights, detailing the homemade tattoos her father gave her as a child when they lived off the grid.
He marked her first kill of a deer on her neck. Her first miss on her forearm. Dotted her cheeks to represent tears, so she’d never cry in front of him.
Based on Karen Dionne’s best-selling book of the same name, the film The Marsh King’s Daughter feels unsure as well. It’s part psychological drama, part thriller, but not an effective whole.
Directed by Neil Burger (Voyagers), the film has an intriguing start in the woods and marsh, where young Helena (a wonderful Brooklynn Prince, Home Before Dark) lives in a log cabin with her parents. Time seems indeterminate here, from the family’s nondescript clothing to the lack of modern amenities.
Helena skips out on chores to accompany her dad, Jacob (Ben Mendelsohn, Secret Invasion), on hunting treks, frustrating her mother, Beth (Caren Pistorius, Unhinged). The girl idolizes her father, who idolizes nature, finding life lessons in animal behavior. He quizzes Helena about animal tracks, what she thinks a creature feels, what she would do if afraid for her life.
Aside from some chains in the shed where Jacob keeps his rifle, Helena thinks nothing odd about their solitary existence—until a lost man on an ATV pulls up one day while Jacob is away. Instead of offering directions, Beth begs him for help.
It turns out that Jacob kidnapped her a dozen years earlier. Some of the film’s most riveting scenes come as Helena, about ten years old, feels overwhelmed by the lights, computer, and coffee maker at a police station compared to the bucolic sounds she knows. The girl lashes out, calling her mother a liar.
Aerial shots from the marsh to the countryside, city, and suburbs then jump the story ahead about twenty years. Helena (Ridley, Sometimes I Think About Dying) now works on spreadsheets in an office, covering her tattoos with makeup. Married to Steven (Garrett Hedlund, Tulsa King), a university professor, she has a young daughter, Marigold (Joey Carson), and a past of lies. She sneaks out of their home at night when everyone else is asleep, walking through the nearby woods to absorb being in nature.
When the imprisoned Jacob breaks out of custody, spurring cops to Helena’s house, Steven learns the truth. Clark (Gil Birmingham, Yellowstone), the lawman who married Beth after their escape and helped raise Helena as her stepfather, also reappears, having known her whereabouts this whole time.
The Marsh King’s Daughter bogs down during its middle stretch (no pun intended), unable to integrate suspense from Jacob’s escape with Helena’s emotional journey, including unsolved feelings toward him and her mother. A third act return to the marsh helps right this imbalance as Helena taps into her hunting and survival skills.
Aside from pacing issues, the script by Elle Smith and Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) includes some on-the-nose dialogue for the more-than-capable cast. Ridley shows Helena’s tearful misgivings, rage, and resourcefulness, setting snares and tripwires around her suburban home as if resorting to muscle memory. Mendelsohn’s part relies a lot on his stoic presence and deep, hypnotic voice, but he’s absent for far too long at times to convey Jacob’s lingering hold on his daughter. Birmingham relates Clark’s compassion and understated strength.
Shot in Toronto and Northern Ontario, standing in for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, The Marsh King’s Daughter features lots of wide and aerial shots of verdant scenery, heightening the contrast between Helena’s worlds. Its intriguing premise might be enough to carry the film for some viewers, but others might feel unsatisfied by its ambivalence.
