3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Marsh King's Daughter

2023, Neil Burger (Limitless) -- Amazon

Not sure why I chose to watch this one, but it had been on My List (the Amazon list, not the "Need to Watch" draft post) for a while. Something about the idea of a young woman who had her childhood stolen away by a man who felt the need to own a wife and a child, living off the grid, in the wilderness, until they escape him, under his own terms appealed to me. And no, the act he performed doesn't appeal to me, but the survival of such, and how one would come to terms with it, did. I was curious how Daisy Ridley would portray a grown woman after being raised in the woods by a villain.

The movie starts with the history, Helena (Daisy Ridley, Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens) and Jacob (Ben Mendelsohn, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), father and daughter, Beth (Caren Pistorius, Cargo) the mother always in the background. There is an obvious bond between father and daughter, as he teaches her survival and accountability and ... well, obedience. At this point you could think the movie was just about a family who decided to live a "back to nature" way of living, nothing nefarious. Jacob can be equally gentle & caring, as rigid & demanding, but that's fatherhood. But then a random stranger appears in their woods, and Jacob kills him, but also giving Beth the impetus and opportunity to escape with a more than hesitant Helena. The act ends with Helena desperate to escape back to her father, until he is caught by the authorities. The whole "he kidnapped me and forced me to have his child" drama is not part of Helena's reality.

Years later. Helena bears the memories of her childhood on her skin, pin-prick tattoos given to her by her father that she does her best to cover with makeup. She has her own family now, and a mindless office drone job. Jacob has been in jail all this time, until he engineers a violent escape. Her past is dredged up, and she is forced to confront it.

I am sure the Karen Dionne novel did a better story of delving into Helena's thought processes, and we get hints in the silences and long looks the movie allows. I am sure the book was more harsh than the movie tried to be. I am sure the movie would have served the story better, to begin as the book did, in the present, introduced to Helena in her current life. I am sure this would have moved the movie from being simply passable, a pay-check assigned to director and stars, into something that would leave you thinking. Alas...

It makes me think about these kind of "thrillers" or "psychological dramas" that used to be made, that would be the talk of the entertainment news for a while, something people would talk about at work. I recall Villeneuve's Prisoners or Atom Egoyan's Captive (I know I saw this, not sure why I didn't write about it, still thinking conspiratorially that Blogger occasionally removes posts), which capture the pathos of abduction deeply. This movie wanted to be that. Alas...