Daisy Ridley

Magpie

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Annette looks into a broken mirror

All sorts of klaxons are sounding, red lights flashing and warning bells ringing at the beginning of Magpie, a neo-noir which, by the end, has triumphed in telling a story which Roald Dahl (wearing his adult hat) might be proud to call one of his own. It’s a screenplay written by an actor and it’s his first one – two amber signals right there. What’s more writer Tom Bateman is the husband of the film’s star, Daisy Ridley. And the story is “based on an original idea by Daisy Ridley”. There are are so many potential bear traps there that trepidation is understandable. And yet. A small, dark, exquisitely formed thriller-ish story is … Read more

Sometimes I Think About Dying

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Fran's fantasy of being dead on a beach

Can we agree that the casting of Daisy Ridley in the Star Wars reboot was one of the best right calls ever made? My preferences established, can we all also agree that her non-Star Wars choices have often been less than stellar? On to Sometimes I Think About Dying, a reminder of why she was chosen for The Force Awakens and how good she can be with the right material. In flat grey Oregon, flat grey Fran (Ridley) lives a mouselike existence, creeping every day into her desk job in a run-of-the-mill office, creeping home again after work for a dinner consisting of cottage cheese before settling down for the evening with a … Read more

The Marsh King’s Daughter

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Ben Mendelsohn as the marsh king

Languid is a strange way to go for a psychological thriller, an even stranger way to go for an action thriller. But that’s how director Neil Burger plays it in The Marsh King’s Daughter, a misfire that looks like a bold experiment gone wrong. There are a wedge of people in the cast, among them Brooklynn Prince, Gil Birmingham, Caren Pistorius and Garrett Hedlund, but the only two that really matter are Daisy Ridley and Ben Mendelsohn, who play to their strengths – plucky and menacing respectively. Helena is a girl (played at the point by Prince) being brought up in the wilds and taught the ways of the woods by dad Jacob … Read more