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    ‘The Marsh King’s Daughter’ Review: Smoke on the Water

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    Neil Burger’s thriller aims to capture a mother pushed to protect her family from her past.In the director Neil Burger’s harrowing yet thin thriller “The Marsh King’s Daughter,” adapted from Karen Dionne’s same-titled novel, a young Helena (Brooklynn Prince) learns how her fairy tale is actually a nightmare. She lives in a woodland cabin with her stern mother, Beth (Caren Pistorius) and her huntsman father, Jacob (Ben Mendelsohn). Jacob often brands Beth’s white skin with Indigenous inspired tattoos and instructs her how to track and hunt.When a lost wanderer on a four-wheeler comes looking for directions, however, Beth flees with Helena on the vehicle to the police, leading to Jacob’s arrest. Unbeknown to the young Helena, twelve years prior, her supposedly loving father kidnapped Beth to be his bride.As an adult, Helena (Daisy Ridley) shares a daughter with her husband, Stephen (Garrett Hedlund). But Stephen is clueless to Helena’s past. That changes when Jacob escapes from prison. Helena opts to hunt Jacob before he steals her daughter (Joey Carson).This is a film superficially about trauma. Rather than mining the emotional and psychological complexities of Helena’s devastation, potentially ripe subjects, Burger hastily pushes ill-fitting thriller tropes onto a character study frame.While Mendelsohn is often adept at portraying villains, his potential to deliver menace is restricted by a one-note script. Putrid hues of greenish-yellow lighting, meant to signify jumps into the past, also underwhelm the suspense. Still, a game Ridley, along with a brief cameo by a soulful Gil Birmingham, provides the necessary stakes for Burger’s film not to idle in narrative mud.The Marsh King’s DaughterRated R for violence. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Settlers’ Review: Interstellar Colonialism on Mars

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      The first feature from Wyatt Rockefeller takes on exploitation and violence against women — and bungles both.Billionaires are racing to colonize space, but how might it play out if they were ever to be successful? “Settlers,” a sci-fi thriller from Wyatt Rockefeller (of those Rockefellers) takes a stab at this vision, but succeeds only in telling a clumsy cautionary tale of homesteading and violence on the planet Mars. It would make the most sense for this film to side with Jerry (Ismael Cruz Córdova), a Mars native hoping to reclaim his land. Instead, it paints him as a deranged savage.“Settlers” is divided into three chapters, each focused on a key figure in the life of a young girl named Remmy (Brooklynn Prince). Her father, Reza (Jonny Lee Miller), is a short-tempered, protective man. He warns Remmy and her mother, Ilsa (Sofia Boutella), not to stray too far from their remote ranch. Soon enough, his paranoia proves true when Jerry appears. As it turns out, Jerry’s family used to own the land before Reza and Ilsa ousted them. He wants his home back.Though this could be a straightforward fable about the ills of colonialism — the twist being that Remmy and her family are the real intruders — Rockefeller’s muddled script casts Jerry as the villain, and he quickly makes Remmy’s life a living hell. Jerry (played, notably, by a Puerto Rican actor) will stop at nothing, including murder, to lead a successful life on Mars.This has all the trappings of a film that should know what it’s doing: impressive special effects, slick cinematography, staggering art direction. Unfortunately, all the money in the world can’t save this rotten narrative, which culminates in a scene depicting the attempted rape of a teenage girl. “Settlers” purports to challenge violence against women and colonialism. Instead, the female protagonist wallows in powerlessness for most of the movie, and a boxy robot is ultimately presented as more sympathetic than a displaced brown man.SettlersNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In select theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More