‘The Marsh King’s Daughter’ Review: Daisy Ridley Turns Predator as a Woman Raised in the Wilderness by Her Sinister Hunter Father
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Helena (Daisy Ridley), the title character of “The Marsh King’s Daughter,” is a woman living what she thinks is a safe, comfortable middle-class existence — just like the heroes of “Cape Fear” or “Straw Dogs.” And like those characters, she’s ripped out of her cocoon by a man with a vengeful agenda.
In this case, the self-righteous stalker-invader is her father, Jacob (Ben Mendelsohn), who raised her in a cabin in the marshland wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, teaching her how to hunt and survive.
In the film’s early scenes (flashbacks to Helena’s childhood, where she’s played by Brooklynn Prince, the gifted actress from “The Florida Project”), we might almost be watching some off-the-grid version of the Laura Ingalls Wilder story, as Helena drinks in the woodland skills taught by Jacob, with each lesson marked by a homemade tattoo (he inks a deer on her neck when she gets her first kill).
As we discover, though, this Pa is no benevolent patriarch. He’s a violent criminal who kidnapped Helena’s mother when she was a teenager; she became pregnant, and their back-to-nature clan has been living in the woods in a state of hidden coercion ever since.
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