Helena worships her father, Jacob.
The family, which also includes wife and mother Beth, lives a simple life in the Michigan wilderness. Jacob teaches Helena how to hunt — how to survive — giving her permanent markings representing her successes and failures.
He affectionately calls her “Little Shadow.”
What Helena doesn’t know — and what the viewer will learn fairly early in “The Marsh King’s Daughter,” a promising but uneven psychological thriller bound for theaters this week — is that she, like her mother, is a captive, Jacob having kidnapped Beth prior to Helena’s conception.
One day, when Jacob (Ben Mendelsohn) has ventured away from Beth (Caren Pistorius, “Gloria Bell”) and Helena (played as a girl by Brooklynn Prince of “The Florida Project”), a man on a four-wheeler, having lost sight of a trail he was riding, approaches their small rustic home asking for help.
This is Beth’s chance to escape with her daughter, and she takes it, Helena being confused and traumatized by the ordeal that follows.
Years later, Helena — portrayed as an adult by “Star Wars” sequel trilogy star Daisy Ridley — is keeping her past a secret, even from her husband, Stephen (Garret Hedlund, “Triple Frontier”), and their young daughter, Marigold (Joey Carson). However, after Jacob escapes custody during a prison transfer, law enforcement folks visit her home, and the secret is no more.
The authorities promise they’ll apprehend Jacob — now known as the infamous “Marsh King” — and that Helena and her family will be safe.
“You don’t know my father,” Helena says. “If he makes it to the wild, you’ll never see him again.”
Quickly, there is reason to believe Jacob has perished in a car accident. But while Helena seems to initially buy the evidence, she can’t shake the feeling that not only is her father alive but that he is also nearby and stalking her.
Based on the bestselling 2017 novel of the same name by Karen Dionne, “The Marsh King’s Daughter” has been adapted by screenwriters Mark L. Smith (co-writer of “The Revenant”) and Elle Smith and director Neil Burger.
With credits that include 2006’s “The Illusionist,” 2011’s “Limitless” and 2014’s “Divergent,” Burger knows how to suck you in and get you invested in characters, which he does here. The film’s aforementioned prologue is engrossing, and the escape scene is downright riveting.
From there, Burger slowly ratchets up the tension as Helena waits for the all-but-inevitable reemergence of Jacob. (After all, on that all-important night years ago, right before Jacob is apprehended feet from his daughter, he tells her, “I’ll come find you in the shadow.”)
Ridley (“Murder on the Orient Express,” “Ophelia”) adds to the murky mystery of “The Marsh King’s Daughter” with a performance that makes Helena hard to read. Is she terrified of Jacob coming back into her life, or does a part of her — perhaps a significant part of her — want that? She wasn’t close to her mother as a child, and that continued after their freedom, when Beth coupled with a kind local lawman, Clark (the always enjoyable Gil Birmingham of “Yellowstone”), and no doubt she misses Jacob on some level, however misguided that feeling may be.
And as he has been proved time and again, Mendelsohn (“Bloodline,” “Ready Player One”) knows how to play a relatively complex villain. A fellow alum of the franchise set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” having portrayed (the villainous) Director Krennic in 2016’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” Mendelsohn always brings a little something seductive to a baddie. He certainly does that in “The Marsh King’s Daughter” — especially in the early scenes, where he appears to have been de-aged with convincing-enough digital effects along with hair and makeup work.
Without getting much into the film’s final act, you simply want more from it — as well as a bit more chemistry (mild spoiler alert) between Ridley and Mendelsohn. For a while, “The Marsh King’s Daughter” feels as though it may be heading somewhere truly interesting, but, instead, it becomes a bit waterlogged.
The movie was shot in and around Toronto, with remote regions of Ontario standing in for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The unusual setting helps “The Marsh King’s Daughter” stand out from the thriller pack, but it isn’t reason enough to strongly recommend the movie.
Where: Theaters.
When: Nov. 3.
Rated: R for violence.
Runtime: 1 hour, 48 minutes.
Stars (of four): 2.
