The Marsh King's Daughter(2023)||Movie Review.
I've always wondered what growing up in the woods would feel like. The cartoon Tarzan portrayed living in the woods as fun and exciting. I mean, who wouldn't want to peacefully cohabitate with animals and when in some form of animal trouble, have other animals to back you up. Jumping from branch to branch, feeling the cool breeze on your face and basically living the life.
"The Marsh King's Daughter" is one movie I've had on my mobile device for quite some time now. I do not know if it's just me but whenever movie titles are long and sound a bit boring, my interest level reduces for that movie. Eventually, I got myself to see this piece after weeks of not seeing movies and I'm here to share my thoughts on the movie.
About The Movie.
When her (Helena) father breaks out of prison, a young lady is forced to relive her past which was seemingly traumatic. Her father breaking out of prison can mean only one thing; trouble and the young lady is bent on shielding her family from the fast approaching mayhem.
Helena, knowing who her father was and knowing every single move he would make, sets out to stop him from abducting herself and her daughter just like he did with her mom. From here, the battle of intelligence begins.
Directed by Neil Burger, the Marsh King's daughter is a psychological thriller drama released on the 3rd of November, 2023. The movie centres around a small and possibly underdeveloped geographical area with close inhabitants.
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Daisy Ridley as Helena
We–the viewers– saw Helena grow from a ten year old girl to a married woman with a loving husband and a beautiful daughter. Helena was vicious and very brave right from when she lived with her father.
The little Helena didn't have the best relationship with her mother because her father made it that way. He always took her to hunt in the woods and whenever she made a kill, she got rewarded. Not with candy but with tattoos.
The little Helena demonstrated the innocence of a child living far from civilization; who knew only what she was told. The bigger Helena on the other hand clearly portrayed the sacrifice a mother was willingly to make to keep her family safe. In general, I would say that the character Helena did a good job.
Ben Mendelsohn as Jacob Holbrook.
Jacob Holbrook was referred to as the Marsh king for a greater part of the movie. The Marsh king was Helena's father and childhood idol. Jacob was a kidnapper and by extension, a murderer. Nonetheless, he always had a way of bending over the law.
Jacob broke out of prison a few years after he was convicted and decided that he wanted to start up another jungle family but this time with his daughter and granddaughter.
Ben played the role of a gruesome man who would stop at nothing when he wanted something or in this case, someone. He played the role pretty well.
My Opinion
The beginning of the movie had some suspense to it. The viewers were introduced to a family of three–a father, a mother and a daughter–living very far away from civilization. As such, the very question would be why? Why are they living out there? Was it a consensual decision between the two adults involved?
I like how real certain effects and scenarios were. Take the woods and the water bodies with green phytoplankton for instance. This sent the message that the Marsh king and his family lived in a place where people rarely visited and where visitors weren't exactly welcomed.
However, the screenplay wasn't really the best there could be. With a bit more emotions, the movie would have come out top notch. The characters knew the plot already but instead of acting as if they didn't know what was going to happen next, they rather made predicting the movie easier. I can't exactly count the number of times I predicted the next scene or next two scenes because of how bland a particular character's emotions were.
Nonetheless, there were scenes that stood out beautifully and the movie wasn't a total waste of time. One part that was really intriguing to see was the part where little Helena and her father went hunting together. You could tell that she loved her father very much and was receptive to whatever lessons he had to teach her whether good or bad.
Recommendation
On a scale of one to ten, this movie would be a 4/10 for me. The plot was awfully familiar and very much predictable. Nonetheless, it is a good movie if you're just looking to pass time.
All images used are screenshots from the movie and were taken for illustrative purposes except stated otherwise
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This is The Amazing movie 🤯🤯
You're not the only one here. I have one currently, the people that put the title didn't try at all😅
This movie make sense though...from the way you reviewed
I don't really complain about long titles, some of the best works I've seen have long titles, although maybe it's because they're in Japanese, hahaha.
As for the film, to be honest, it doesn't really catch my attention, it seems like a typical film about a kidnapped family trying to escape. And well, with the score of 4/10 you confirm it.