Beginning the year with a moving turn in the Sundance darling, "Sometimes I Think About Dying," Daisy Ridley continues her quest to carve out exciting performances in absorbing films. The actress ends 2023 with Neil Burger's "The Marsh King's Daughter." As with all adaptations of popular mainstream novels, fans of Karen Dionne's 2017 namesake work will likely lead the the book was better charge. While Burger's film (written by father and
Limitless begins with Bradley Cooper contemplating a leap from the penthouse of a high-rise apartment building. Based on previous experience, I might have considered this the perfect beginning to a movie. Fortunately, Cooper sticks around and proves me wrong. Too often he has fallen too easily in relying on Adonis DNA and hanging out in the heartthrob category. Here, he’s an inviting lift to Burger’s trippy direction and script (no one speaks that way, but everyone wishes they could speak that way).