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.
Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in a spaceship from Earth, the sci-fi drama “Voyagers” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people, Asians and Latinos) who portray American scientists and crew members involved in exploring a new planet where human beings can possibly live.
Culture Clash: A power struggle erupts among the crew members, and it turns deadly.
Culture Audience: “Voyagers” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching derivative sci-fi movies that borrow heavily from dystopian young-adult novels with “survival of the fittest” themes.
Quintessa Swindell, Reda Elazouar, Fionn Whitehead, Archie Madekwe and Lou Llobel in “Voyagers” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)
“Voyagers” is a disappointing space travel movie that’s the equivalent of being stuck on a pointless road trip with bickering 20-somethings from a bad soap opera. “Voyagers” is not an adventure story about exploring a new planet. The movie is really about a group of young people isolated on a spaceship in a bland ripoff of “Lord of the Flies.” The cast members’ overall serviceable performances can’t quite save “Voyagers” from the movie’s annoying “bait and switch” in its story, which has too many plot holes and not enough originality for it to be a truly enjoyable film.
Written and directed by Neil Burger, “Voyagers” begins with a captioned intro that explains why this space voyage is taking place: “As the Earth grows hotter, and drought and disease ravage the population, scientists look for a new planet—one that can support human life. In 2063, they find it. The human voyage to the planet will take 86 years.” Although the movie never says which government is spearheading this voyage, viewers can assume it’s the United States because all of the people involved have American accents.
Leading this experimental voyage is a scientist named Richard (played by Colin Farrell), who tells people in a meeting that the plan is to have 30 qualified crew members—all who were born and bred to live on a spaceship. These crew members (who were born from artificial insemination) will have a pre-determined number of children and grandchildren during this 86-year journey in outer space. During this time, these voyagers and their descendants are supposed to learn enough about this new planet to return to Earth and bring back this knowledge so that other humans from Earth can possibly start relocating to this new planet.
From the start, there are some major problems with the story. Richard is the only person who’s shown interacting with and educating the children who were selected to be born and and bred for this program. He has been involved in raising them since birth. The movie should have had more scientists and government officials involved in this training. Just because “Voyagers” is a low-budget independent film is no excuse for this lack of credibility. If you can afford Colin Farrell to be in your movie, you can afford to hire some more cast members to portray the people training the children.
The children, who are in the same age group, are first seen as 4-year-olds in a sterile spaceship simulation environment where they are solving puzzles on computers. Richard interacts with them while wearing a hazmat suit. He is kind and patient with the kids, who have deliberately been raised indoors their entire life. The reason for always keeping the children indoors is because if the kids knew what it was like to be outdoors on Earth, it could have negative effects on their mental health while they’re in outer space if they knew what they were missing on Earth.
There’s a scene early in the movie that completely contradicts what happens later in the story. During a teaching session, all of the kids are happy to see Richard when he enters the room. Most of the kids run up to him and hug him, and he hugs them back. But later in the story, when the children begin the voyage when they’re 24 years old, they act as if they’ve never expressed public displays of affection before. It doesn’t ring true at all, but it’s the basis for a huge turning point in the movie.
Richard, who is a bachelor with no kids of his own, has grown attached to these children. He’s so attached that he wants to go with them on this voyage. His supervisor Marianne Sancar (played by Veronica Falcón) is very reluctant to allow it. However, Richard tells her that he really won’t miss living on Earth at all. And the next thing you know, Richard is the only adult over the age of 30 who’s with the crew members who were bred for this voyage. Once Richard and the crew members live on the spaceship, he no longer has to wear a hazmat suit when he’s around them.
Here’s another problematic part of the story: No government would realistically allow a bunch of 24-year-olds who don’t have any life experience outside of a spaceship environment to be on their own to explore a new planet. It’s what would have happened if Richard had not insisted on going on this voyage too. Any scientific exploration like this one would require people who would know what it’s like to live on Earth (indoors and outdoors), to make informed decisions on whether or not a new planet could be inhabitable by human beings whose biology was wired to live on Earth through centuries of evolution. It’s basic science for any scientific exploration to have that comparison point.
The “bait” part of “Voyagers” starts off misleading viewers into thinking that these young people, who’ve been trained specifically to explore this new planet, will get to do this exploring in the movie. But no, here comes the “switch” part of the movie: “Voyagers” has absolutely zero screen time of these so-called explorers doing any exploring. It’s not really spoiler information to reveal this fact about “Voyagers.” It’s a fair warning to viewers that this so-called “new planet” is never seen in the movie. Instead, “Voyagers” is essentially a predictable and often-dull soap opera on a spaceship.
Out of the 30 young people who are the crew members, three are the main focus of the story. It’s telegraphed early on that these three are the main characters, in a scene with the future voyagers as 4-year-olds. They are the only three characters Richard is shown tucking into bed and calling them by their names when he says good night to them.
The three main characters at 24 years old are:
Christopher (played by Tye Sheridan), who is even-tempered and analytical.
Sela (played by Lily-Rose Depp), who is the group’s assertive and intelligent chief medical officer.
Zac (played by Fionn Whitehead), who is the group’s rebellious chief surveillance officer.
And because “Voyagers” is really a soap opera in space, you know what that means: love triangle. There are some other crew members whose personalities are given some notable screen time. They include:
Kai (played by Archie Madekwe), a mischief maker who likes breaking the rules.
Julie (played by Quintessa Swindell), a flirtatious engineer who has a mutual attraction to Kai.
Peter (played by Viveik Kalra), who becomes a rival to Kai for Julie’s affections.
Phoebe (played by Chanté Adams), who is the group member most likely to stick to the rules and protocol.
Edward (played by Isaac Hempstead Wright), a nerdy control room officer who’s the most “book smart” one in the group.
Anda (played by Madison Hu), a level-headed type who is good at negotiating.
All of the crew members except Richard are given a blue liquid called (unimaginatively) The Blue as part of their dining routine. Christopher finds out through some computer hacking that The Blue is really a drug that dulls human senses. It contains a toxin called T56j, which makes people docile and eliminates sexual desire and other sensual urges.
Zac is with Christopher when this information is discovered. Christopher then confronts Richard about it. Richard admits that The Blue is a medication that was given to the crew members to make them less likely to rebel or get distracted.
It’s also explained in the movie that the outer-space program doesn’t want the crew members to conceive children naturally. All conceptions are supposed to be by artificial insemination. It’s been pre-determined how many children and grandchildren each voyager will have, in order to prevent over-population.
Not surprisingly, it doesn’t sit too well with Christopher and Zac to find out that their lives have been strictly controlled and manipulated by being given The Blue drug without their knowledge and consent. They decide to stop taking The Blue. And eventually, Christopher and Zac tell some other crew members that The Blue is really a drug to keep them complacent. And, of course, the word gets out to everyone else, and they also stop drinking The Blue.
Remember that scene of the cute and cuddly kids running up to Richard and hugging him? Well, the filmmakers of “Voyagers” want people to forget that scene, because (plot hole alert) they want viewers to think that these kids have now grown up to be people who don’t know what it’s like to express affection. It’s unclear how long the voyagers were taking The Blue, but it doesn’t matter because it’s not a drug that causes amnesia where they would forget childhood memories.
There’s a scene on the spaceship where Christopher sees Richard and Sela talking, and Richard has his hand affectionately on Sela’s shoulder, like a father would for a daughter. Christopher gets a little freaked out and acts as if Richard is one step away from being a sexual predator because Christopher can’t believe that someone is actually touching Sela in this way. When Christopher asks Sela in private if there’s anything inappropriate going on between her and Richard, she denies it, but Christopher doesn’t look completely convinced. It’s all just sloppy and contradictory screenwriting.
Keep in mind, these voyagers are the same people who, when they were children, were jumping up and hugging Richard and letting him tuck them into bed. It’s quite an unrealistic stretch that Christopher, now in his 20s, would suddenly act like he’s never seen Richard touch Sela in a fatherly way before, when Richard is essentially the only father these kids have ever known. By the way, this movie never shows the young voyagers being curious about who their biological parents are, even though Christopher mentions in a conversation that they’ve inherited physical and personality traits from their unknown parents.
After certain characters in “Voyagers” stop taking The Blue, the movie makes a big deal of showing them acting out as they lose their inhibitions. For Zac, that means a touch can’t just be a touch. When he touches Sela’s face affectionately, it quickly turns into fondling her breasts without consent. Zac and Christopher suddenly get the urge to wrestle each other a lot. And there are multiple scenes of the crew members running playfully through hallways, as if they’ve never done it before in their lives.
Through a series of circumstances, the voyagers also learn about violence. And the rest of the movie plays out as predictably as you think it would. Christopher and Zac go from being friends to being bitter enemies. And in true “Lord of the Flies” fashion, people take sides, and there’s a battle over who’s going to be in power.
And what about the mission to explore this new planet? That gets lost in the arguing and fights that take up almost all of the last third of the movie. And there’s some nonsense about a possible alien that’s invaded the ship, which is a fear that Zac uses to manipulate people to do what he wants.
While all of this childish drama is going on, no one seems to be operating the spaceship. It must be on auto-pilot, just like this formulaic, substandard sci-fi flick is on auto-pilot for almost its entire duration. Out of all the actors portraying the young voyagers, Whitehead seems to be the one having the most fun (probably because he’s playing a villain role), and he smirks it up to the hilt.
Unfortunately, the scenes in the movie where the voyagers have been taking The Blue drug require them to talk in almost-robotic monotones. And so, there are long stretches of “Voyagers” that are quite boring because the actors are supposed to be portraying “numb” people. Richard is the only character on the spaceship who maintains a strong sense of lucid humanity, but the power structure ends up changing on the spaceship, so Richard isn’t in the movie as much as some viewers might think he would be.
The cinematography and visual effects for “Voyagers” aren’t terrible but they’re not outstanding either. The movie’s production design for the spaceship isn’t entirely convincing. The interior rooms often just look like a shiny and sterile cafeteria, office building or lounge space. There aren’t many exterior scenes in the movie because the voyagers spend more time quarreling or goofing off inside than actually working outside.
You know that “Voyagers” is a terrible sci-fi movie because it cares so little about this mission to explore a new planet. Not once do any of the voyagers talk about any hopes or fears that they have about what they might find on this new planet. You’d think that people who were raised to be these pioneering explorers would be curious. But no, not in this movie. “Voyagers,” just like the space mission in the movie, was badly conceived from the start and should have been aborted.
Lionsgate released “Voyagers” in U.S. cinemas on April 9, 2021.
