Review: ‘The Marsh King’s Daughter,’ starring Daisy Ridley, Ben Mendelsohn, Garrett Hedlund, Caren Pistorius, Brooklynn Prince and Gil Birmingham

November 22, 2023

by Carla Hay

Daisy Ridley in “The Marsh King’s Daughter” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions)

“The Marsh King’s Daughter”

Directed by Neil Burger

Culture Representation: Taking place in Michigan, in 2002 and in 2022, the dramatic film “The Marsh King’s Daughter” (based on the 2017 novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and one Native American) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Twenty years after her father was imprisoned for kidnapping her mother, a 30-year-old woman, who has tried to erase him from her life, finds out that her past has come back to haunt her when he breaks out of prison captivity to track her down.

Culture Audience: “The Marsh King’s Daughter” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching formulaic and ridiculous “women in peril” dramas.

Gil Birmingham and Daisy Ridley in “The Marsh King’s Daughter” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions)

It’s ironic that much of “The Marsh King’s Daughter” takes place in a backwoods marsh area, because this entire movie is a soggy mess. It starts off as a monotonous drama and devolves into a series of silly action scenes that don’t look believable. There are no real surprises in this disappointing dud, except for the surprise that some viewers might feel about how “The Marsh King’s Daughter” gets worse as the movie stumbles along to its very predictable conclusion.

Directed by Neil Burger, “The Marsh King’s Daughter” is based on Karen Dionne’s 2017 novel of the same name. Elle Smith and Mark L. Smith co-wrote the unimpressive adapted screenplay for “The Marsh King’s Daughter.” It’s more of a series of plot checklists than an engaging story that flows well. The cast members, for the most part, just go through the motions in drab performances.

The tedious first third of the movie takes place in 2002, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where a reclusive family of three people are living “off the grid” in a remote wooded area near a marsh. Helena (played by Brooklynn Prince) is a 10-year-old who adores her father Jacob “Jake” Holbrook (played by Ben Mendelsohn), who teaches her the fundamentals of hunting and fishing. Jacob also has an unusual habit of giving underage Helena a tattoo every time she kills a specific animal.

Helena has a closer emotional bond with her father than she has with her mother Beth (played by Caren Pistorius), because Helena thinks that her mother is an uptight nag. “She’s always mad at me,” Helen complains to Jacob about Beth. From the beginning, it’s shown that Jacob is abusive to Beth.

Every time it looks like Beth wants to leave to go somewhere on her own, Jacob physically and roughly restrains her and prevents her from leaving. Helena witnesses some of this abuse, but she turns a blind eye to it because her father has convinced Helena that Beth deserves to be “disciplined.” Jacob is so manipulative, he has lied to Helena by saying Beth is trying to abandon them.

That’s why it should come as no surprise to “The Marsh King’s Daughter” viewers when it’s revealed that Jacob kidnapped Beth (whose last name is Ericson) about 12 years earlier and forced her to get pregnant. Helena was the result of this forced pregnancy. This secret isn’t revealed to Helena until something drastic happens.

By the end of the first third of the movie, Beth makes a daring escape with Helena, while Jacob murders an innocent ATV driver (played by Joshua Peace) during this escape. Jacob is captured, convicted, and sentenced to several years in prison. The media and law enforcement have given Jacob the nickname The Marsh King. None of this is spoiler information, since it’s already revealed in the trailer for “The Marsh King’s Daughter,” which gives away about 80% of the movie’s plot.

The middle and last sections “The Marsh King’s Daughter” take place in 2022. Helena (played by Daisy Ridley) is now a 30-year-old married mother, with the married surname Pelletier. Helena works in accounting at a local college. Beth is now deceased. It’s mentioned at one point in the movie that it took years for Helena and Beth to somewhat mend their relationship before Beth died.

Helena is deeply ashamed of who her father is, so she changed her own identity years ago. She has not told her businessman husband Stephen Pelletier (played by Garrett Hedlund) about her father and his sordid crimes. Instead, Helena has told Stephen that her father is dead. Helena and Stephen have one child together: an intuitive and curious daughter named Marigold (played by Joey Carson), who’s about 8 or 9 years old.

Helena’s world comes crashing down when Jacob escapes from being transported in a prison van and kills a few more people in the process. Jacob is determined to track down Helena, because in his warped mind, he thinks that he, Helena, and Marigold should live as a happy family in the marsh area where Helena spent much of her childhood.

Gil Birmingham has a thankless supporting role as an investigating police officer named Clark Bekkum, who was in love with Helena’s mother Beth. Clark and Beth never married, but Clark became like a stepfather figure to Helena when she was younger and when Jacob was in prison. Clark still wants to have that type of stepfather figure role in Helena’s life when Clark and Helena reconnect after not seeing each other for years. What happens to Clark in the movie is exactly what you think happens to Clark.

Mendolsohn has made a career out of playing movie villains, and he does more of the same posturing and sneering as “The Marsh King” serial killer Jacob in this tepid and uninspired drama. Ridley fails to convince during an abrupt transition when Helena goes from being a meek and introverted wife/mother to a badass action hero who thinks she doesn’t need law enforcement’s help in dealing with her dangerous father. There is so little suspense in how this story ends, “The Marsh King’s Daughter” simply exists as mindless mush.

Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions released “The Marsh King’s Daughter” in U.S. cinemas on November 3, 2023. The movie was released on digital and VOD on November 21, 2023.

Review: ‘Unhinged’ (2020) starring Russell Crowe

August 21, 2020

by Carla Hay

Russell Crowe in “Unhinged” (Photo by Skip Bolden/Solstice Studios)

“Unhinged” (2020) 

Directed by Derrick Borte

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the dramatic action film “Unhinged” features a predominantly white cast (with a few African Americans) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash:  A woman becomes the stalking target of a stranger who wants deadly revenge after they were involved in a road rage incident.

Culture Audience: “Unhinged” appeals primarily to people who like formulaic “stalking” movies that often have unrealistic and illogical scenes.

Caren Pistorius in “Unhinged” (Photo by Skip Bolden/Solstice Studios)

The dramatic action film “Unhinged” is the type of movie that wants people to turn off their logic and common sense and just go along for the chaotic and often-ludicrous ride of this story’s demented stalking. “Unhinged” could be considered a horror film, but the tone is more about being suspenseful than being scary. The way that “Unhinged” was made is as if it’s a Lifetime drama movie made for people who want manic, testosterone-fueled action with cars.

Directed by Derrick Borte and written by Carl Ellsworth, “Unhinged” shows right from the opening scene that the movie’s title describes the story’s villain. This deranged antagonist doesn’t have a name in the movie (although he uses the alias Tom Cooper later in the story), and he’s played by Russell Crowe, an Oscar-winning actor who should be doing higher-quality movies than this awful dreck. For the purposes of this review, we’ll call the villain Unhinged Man.

The movie begins with Unhinged Man parked outside a house on a quiet residential street on a rainy night in an unnamed U.S. city. (“Unhinged” was actually filmed in the New Orleans area.) He’s sitting in his pickup truck, he pops a pill, and then lights a match before the match extinguishes. He then takes a hammer, goes up to the house he’s been watching, and uses the hammer to break down the front door.

He then viciously murders a man and woman inside the house with the hammer while the house’s door is open. The murder victims can be heard screaming as they’re being attacked. After he kills them, he sets the house on fire before calmly driving away.

All of this loud mayhem would definitely get the neighbors’ attention in real life, but as Unhinged Man drives away, there are no signs of neighbors even knowing what just took place. No lights go on in the surrounding houses, no neighbors go outside or peek through their windows to see what’s happening. It’s the first sign that this movie is going to have some dumb scenes set up so that Unhinged Man can brazenly commit murder in front of numerous potential witnesses and get away with it for as long as possible.

During the movie’s opening credits, there’s a montage showing TV news footage or viral videos about how angry people are in America and how that rage is turning into random acts of violence. This montage is intended to get viewers in the state of mind that Unhinged Man is one of those people who will violently lash out at strangers, so whoever becomes his next target better watch out.

As for the people he murdered in that house, the movie never reveals who they are and why they were murdered. It’s one of many loose ends and plot holes in “Unhinged.” The identities of these murder victims seem to be kept deliberately anonymous as a metaphor for how anyone could be a target for Unhinged Man, and he can have very petty reasons for wanting to murder.

So who will be his next unlucky victim? It’s hair stylist Rachel (played by Caren Pistorius), who’s about to have a very bad day. (Most of the action in “Unhinged” takes place during a 24-hour period.) Rachel, who is in her 30s, is also going through some tough times. She’s in the middle of a contentious divorce that has reached a point where her estranged husband now wants to have the house where she lives with their son Kyle (played by Gabriel Bateman), who’s about 13 or 14 years old.

Also living in the house is Rachel’s younger brother Fred (played by Austin P. McKenzie), who’s in his early 20s and unemployed, but he says he has some great business ideas. In other words, he’s a freeloader. Fred has a girlfriend named Mary (played by Juliene Joyner), who might or might not live there too. The movie doesn’t make it clear where Mary lives, but she has a serious-enough relationship with Fred that she’s often at the house.

Rachel’s divorce lawyer Andy (played by Jimmi Simpson) happens to be her best friend, as he’s described later in the movie. One morning, before Rachel is about to drive Kyle to school, Andy calls to tell Rachel the bad news that her soon-to-be ex-husband Richard (who’s never seen on camera) is going to put up a big fight to get the house. Rachel is already running late for an appointment with her most important client Deborah Haskell (played by Anne Leighton), and she’s also in a rush to get Kyle to school.

Before they drive off, Rachel and Kyle debate on which route she should take to get him to school: Should they take the freeway or surface streets? Either way, they’re going to be in rush-hour traffic but they have to guess which might be the faster way. They take the freeway and run into a traffic jam, so Rachel decides to get off the freeway and drive on the streets.

These driving scenes have increasing tension, because during this car trip, Rachel gets two phone calls with bad news. Richard calls to let Kyle know that he has to cancel their upcoming father/son get-together for a sports game, because Richard just started a new job that is requiring him to do some work that conflicts with the game schedule. And then, Deborah calls Rachel in frustration over Rachel’s tardiness. Deborah tells Rachel that not only is she canceling the appointment but she’s also firing Rachel.

It’s during this phone call that Deborah mentions another setback that Rachel went through not too long ago: Rachel used to own her own hair salon, but she lost that business. The movie doesn’t reveal exactly when or why Rachel lost the salon, but this business failure is brought up as another example of how Rachel is under tremendous financial pressure. Losing her most important client has just made things worse.

Therefore, by the time Rachel encounters Unhinged Man, she’s feeling very stressed-out and anxious. While waiting at an intersection at a stoplight, she notices that the pickup truck in front of her won’t move after the light turns green. She loudly honks her horn, but the driver still won’t move. Finally, she decides to pass the truck and gives the driver a dirty look as she passes. The driver is Unhinged Man, of course.

Rachel hits another traffic jam on the streets, where she notices that Unhinged Man has followed her. He eventually drives up next to Rachel’s car, where Kyle (who’s in the back seat) has the window next to him rolled down. Fearing that she could be dealing with a nutjob, Rachel tells Kyle not to talk to the stranger. And it just so happens that when Kyle tries to close the window with the automatic button, there’s a malfunction and the window is stuck.

Unhinged Man has his window rolled down. He starts a conversation where he asks Rachel why she had to lean hard on her car horn instead of giving it a polite tap. She tells him that it was justified because he wouldn’t move while the light was green. Rachel also says that she’s in a hurry and she’s having a bad day. Unhinged Man then apologizes and asks Rachel to apologize too, but she refuses.

His demeanor then becomes menacing as he tells Rachel, “I don’t think you even know what a bad day is. But you’re going to find out. You’re going to fucking learn.”

And this heated exchange sets off the stalking and chase scenes in the movie, which includes numerous car crashes and some more people who end up murdered. The worst things about the movie are how many unrealistic things happen and how Rachel is written as a dimwit who makes horrible decisions.

For example, there’s a scene in the movie where Unhinged Man is chasing after Rachel while they’re in their cars. Rachel finds out that her phone is missing (for reasons that are shown in the movie), and she frantically tries to go through her purse to look for her phone while she’s driving. When she sees that her phone isn’t there, instead of going somewhere to get help and use a phone, she keeps driving.

There’s another scene where Unhinged Man goes after Rachel and he traps her in a packed fleet of cars that are locked in a traffic jam. Unhinged Man then acts like he’s at a monster truck derby and starts ramming cars. And yet, there’s no sign of people in any of the cars getting on their phones to call 911.

Unhinged Man also causes mayhem at a diner in another unrealistic scene. Unhinged Man just casually does what he does and stays too long in places where he knows that the cops are going to show up any minute. Let’s just say that the police take too long to arrive in many scenes in this movie.

And there’s another scene where after the cops show up, the people who were brutally attacked by Unhinged Man aren’t even taken to a hospital. The cops just take the report and then leave. The movie’s sloppy screenwriting also includes Rachel coming up with an illogical and unnecessary idea to lure Unhinged Man to the nursing home where her mother lives. Whether or not she goes through with the idea is shown in the movie.

But the biggest illogical thing about the movie is how, during all of this madness, Rachel doesn’t go to a police station. Instead, she wastes a lot of time making stupid decisions while she’s being chased by Unhinged Man. Crowe’s performance is almost campy, because there are some scenes where he literally growls as he gets angry. The rest of the cast don’t do anything particularly noteworthy in their roles, because their characters are written as fairly generic.

There are hints that Unhinged Man is someone with a troubled past. It’s revealed that he has problems holding on to a steady job (he was fired after just a month on his most recent job) and it’s implied that he went through a painful divorce. Based on how he reacts when he finds out that Rachel is in the middle of a divorce, it seems as if Unhinged Man felt he was the “victim” in his own divorce and he’s extremely bitter about it.

“Unhinged” essentially takes a trope that’s common for a Lifetime movie (a woman in peril) but with male rage given more weight in the story. The high-octane chase scenes and car crashes are meant to appeal to people who like “bang ’em up” action and don’t really care about the reasons for why this destruction is happening. Don’t expect to get a lot of insight into why these characters behave as illogically as they do. Viewers who get to the end of this movie will feel like they were trapped in a badly structured video game where only the chase scenes matter and the characters are as hollow and mindless as they can be.

Solstice Studios released “Unhinged” in U.S. cinemas on August 21, 2020.

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