Daisy Ridley is forced to confront her hidden past in the first trailer for The Marsh King’s Daughter. In the upcoming thriller, Ridley plays Helena, a woman whose secret past is coming back to get her as her father, an infamous criminal, breaks out of prison to hunt her and her family down, forcing Helena to confront him or suffer the consequences. Ben Mendelsohn, Garrett Hedlund, and Gil Birmingham will also star in the latest film by Divergent director Neil Burger.
Daisy Ridley Is Running From Her Past in ‘The Marsh King’s Daughter’
The Marsh King’s Daughter will star Daisy Ridley – best known as Rey from the Star Wars sequel trilogy – as Helena, a seemingly normal woman who’s been hiding a horrible secret about her past. Her father (Ben Menelsohn) is The Marsh King, an infamous criminal who kidnapped Helena’s mother and kept her in the wilderness for years, leading to Helena herself being born there. Now Helena, as a grown adult with her own family, is forced to tell her husband (Garrett Hedlund) the truth after her dad breaks out of jail.
“I think he’s coming for me,” Helena says in the new trailer for The Marsh King’s Daughter. She explains the tattoo on her neck, which her father gave her after she killed her first deer. “This means we’re family,” her father tells her in a flashback. Then, in the present, she’s told the truth: “It means owned, not family. Don’t confuse the two.”
The trailer shows Helena’s growing panic as her father gets closer and closer, at one point even coming in contact with her young daughter. In her panic, Helena sets traps for her father, likely reusing his own teachings as she tries to outmaneuver the man who taught her everything she knows about the wilderness. She’s seen armed with a rifle in the middle of a swamp as a hand holding a pistol rises out of the mud.
“I waited my whole life to see you again,” Helena says in a voiceover, likely talking to her father. “I wasn’t sure what I would feel when I did.”
The Marsh King’s Daughter is directed by Neil Burger with a script written by Karen Dionne, Elle Smith, and Mark L. Smith based on Dionne’s 2017 novel of the same name. STXfilms and Black Bear serve as producers, with Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions distributing. The film is expected to release in theaters on October 6th.
