THE MARSH KING'S DAUGHTER Review

Neil Burger (Limitless, The Illusionist, Divergent) is a reliable set of hands to place your stock adaptation of a popular airport thriller in and if nothing else, The Marsh King’s Daughter demonstrates just how dependable Burger is at executing on if not elevating what could easily be dismissed as a Lifetime movie. Ironically, this is the kind of psychological drama audiences would flock to theaters to see in decades past when such material was placed in the hands of filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Alan Pakula. Though it's highly doubtful this adaptation of Karen Dionne's 2017 bestseller will shape any future box office trends it is nice to see something like The Marsh King’s Daughter - a movie with good bones, a strong premise, and something of a movie star in Daisy Ridley's roundabout franchise way - getting a wide release as any option for a sequel or opportunity to franchise are seemingly completely off the table. 

As refreshing as all this might feel in our current cinematic landscape, there is unfortunately still something rather rote about the experience of The Marsh King’s Daughter for, while those bones are solid, Burger's film doesn't really stand to support much depth or a stand-out performance that takes it beyond the genre stratosphere. There is potential for such, whether that be in exploring the current state of Ridley's Helena Pelletier who is in a constant state of trying to convince herself that the life she's leading is the right one after finding out the one person she believed in the most was really a monster; the movie naturally taking place when this person, this father figure, comes back into her life after twenty years. Or, one of these actors might have taken the opportunity to really infuse the material with some electricity (ahem, Mendelsohn), but instead things are played fairly safe and straightforward leaving the movie feeling predictable and uninspired.

ENEMY Review

I'm not sure what to make of Enemy. It is unclear what exactly I'm meant to take away from the picture, but what is clear to me is that I can't stop going over certain scenes and trying to put together the significance of the actions of the characters, of the shot choices, the color palette, the deeply intentional mood and score and why it builds at certain points and simply sits and broods at others. I want to understand it completely, but I don't and I know even if I offered up a theory of what I thought the final scene means it would likely be completely different from the person who was sitting next to me in the same theater. It is a film and a story meant to elicit conversation, meant to stir up academic-like discussion and it is clear from the opening moments we are in for something extremely meditative that while equally as stark and emotionally haunting (if not more so) than director Denis Villeneuve's previous effort, Prisoners, is much more in tune with its scale and its compact story. Where Prisoners was a sweeping epic of large themes Enemy plays its hand close to the chest and is all the more intriguing for it. As each new scene plays out I couldn't help but to wonder what each little thing meant, what I was intended to take away and if it would result in some revelation I'd already imagined in my mind or if it might come completely out of left field and take me with real surprise. The film opens with a quote simply stating that "chaos is order yet to be deciphered" and as we watch the strange story unravel I couldn't help but to keep repeating this little phrase in my mind and wonder in what sense it was meant to apply to our main characters. The same could be said about any number of things that different people will pick out to latch onto, what is the deeper psychological meaning of the constant references to hands? I'm not sure still, but one thing that remains clear is that I found the film to be completely fascinating and I can't wait to watch it again, to dissect it further and to see just how many different conversations I can have about it.