This week, Lionsgate will release director Neil Burger’s new thriller The Marsh King’s Daughter, Daisy Ridley’s first real studio film since the end of the Star Wars sequel trilogy (and one of only a few studio films in her largely indie-bent filmography). And based on the trailer, it also looks like one of the only movies in her filmography that will actually let her use some of the talents she showed off in the Star Wars movies. Her career so far has looked a lot like Mark Hamill’s non-Star Wars work, with a lot of voice roles and some splashy one-off appearances, but she should be following the lead of her other space-mentor, Harrison Ford, and embracing the fact that she was an action hero in these movies and could easily be one again.
Not to say The Marsh King’s Daughter looks like an action movie, and not to say Ridley’s other film projects have been a mistake, but she is somewhat undeniably awesome in Star Wars—where she served as a physical embodiment of the idea that “Star Wars is exciting”—and if anything worked about the sequel trilogy it was more or less because of what she brought. Her character, Rey, seemed to have a genuine enthusiasm about being involved in a space adventure, which matched the genuine frustration and heartbreak she felt when that adventure didn’t work out the way she hoped it would.
That’s clearest in The Last Jedi, which gives her the most emotionally interesting stuff to work with, particularly when her flirty feud with Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren finally leads to them—temporarily—teaming up in what is one of the greatest fight scenes in the entire history of the Galaxy Far, Far Away (the moment where she rolls onto Kylo Ren’s back to brace herself as she kicks an evil goon remains one of the best things in the whole franchise). Ridley has another Star Wars in the works, but it would be a waste of how cool she can be if her career mostly comes down to “serious dramas” and “Rey.”
Which brings us to The Marsh King’s Daughter, a movie that almost makes it feel like a clever twist in its aforementioned trailer when the nature of Ridley’s character is revealed. Her off-putting American accent tricks you into thinking she’ll be some kind of passive dope, as most Americans are, but then the trailer explains that she’s the now-grown daughter of a man who kidnapped and impregnated her mother, and then spent the next decade brainwashing Ridley’s character into being a weirdo survivalist like him until she and her mother escaped. Now her father has escaped prison, she’s free from his psychological control, and she’s setting traps and getting weapons to prepare for his eventual return.
It’s a fine premise for a movie, and Ridley clearly goes through some kind of transformation from “normal person” to “tough, scary person” that feels like something the Daisy Ridley of those Star Wars movies could pull off. The Marsh King’s Daughter might be terrible, but she should get to do more genre-flavored (or full-on genre) movies like this now that we’re a few years out from Star Wars. Maybe she doesn’t need another action franchise, like how Harrison Ford got the Indiana Jones movies, but she could do some Blade Runner or The Fugitive or Air Force One-type movies and still have room in her life for more straight-laced dramas (if that’s what she’d rather be doing, which seems to be the case).
There’s also the fact that there aren’t a lot of new, young action stars who could conceivably draw a big audience just on their name who haven’t already joined/gotten burned out on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Daisy Ridley could save us from a future where every action movie is made by a Hemsworth or an aging Vin Diesel. Or hell, maybe she should launch a new franchise that’s all her own and give everybody an action-y series that isn’t about superheroes at all. Few other young stars in Hollywood could do that, and even fewer could do it better than she probably could.
Assuming, of course, that she cares about any of this. Maybe those Star Wars movies, and her upcoming spin-off Star Wars movie, have satisfied whatever appetite she had for stunts and fight choreography. Maybe she’d rather be doing voices in Peter Rabbit movies and surprisingly crummy time-loop video games, which is okay. We’ll always have that lightsaber fight from The Last Jedi to fondly look back on.