National Post (National Edition)
Not worth the wait
The King's Daughter
Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Kaya Scodelario, Benjamin Walker Directors: Sean McNamara
Duration: 1 h 30 m Available: In theatres
where available
The pandemic has waylaid many a film. But if The King's Daughter had been made any longer ago I would have suspected the 2009 swine flu of delaying its arrival.
Based on the 1997 novel The Moon and the Sun by Vonda N. McIntyre, The King's Daughter has been in planning stages of one form or another since 1999. But — here's the kicker — the film opening this week was shot in 2014 and has been essentially ready to go since then. Co-stars Kaya Scodelario and Benjamin
Walker met on the set. Today they are married with two children. She's also made the whole of the Maze Runner trilogy since then — shot, released and (mostly) forgotten.
The story is set in 1684, a fact helpfully explained by the onscreen opening titles, and then a second time by Julie Andrews in narration. French King Louis XIV (Pierce Brosnan, preening beneath a foppish wig) is feeling his age, and sends one of his ships to bring back a mermaid. The idea is that the creature's life force, if released during an upcoming solar eclipse, will grant the monarch eternal life.
Court priest Pere La Chaise (William Hurt, easily the best thing in the movie) doesn't like the idea of usurping God's decree that only the soul is immortal, but he reluctantly goes along with the plan. So too does mermaid hunter Yves De La Croix (Walker).
Firmly against the idea and not taking any guff is Marie-Josephe D'Alember (Scodelario), an illegitimate daughter of the king who has been raised in a convent but presents a very un-nunly demeanour when brought to court as the new composer of the king's live wake-up music. (And you thought your Alexa was good.)
Marie-Josephe can also speak to the mermaid, played by Bingbing Fan under heavy makeup and computer-generated fins, and adding a touch of The Shape of Water (I know, this one came first) to a hash of often unrelated elements that includes notes from Pirates of the Caribbean and hints of Jane Austen, not to mention costumes from every century between the 17th and this one.
There's a touch of comedy amid all the courtly behaviour and kingly anger. For instance Louis often
can't remember who shared his bed the night before, leading to his priest having to guide him through morning confession. But I grew so uninterested in the lacklustre plot that I started noticing unintentional humour, like the comically large note slipped under Marie-Josephe's door, or the scene where Hurt's character drops a crucifix like a cop turning in his badge and gun.
The film concludes with a hopeful title card: “The
End is just the beginning.” And while I'm not anxious for a sequel, I hope if we get one that it arrives in a timely fashion. Meanwhile, I see from director Sean McNamara's IMDb page that he has no fewer than 11 films in the works: three in post-production, including a Ronald Reagan biopic starring Dennis Quaid; four in pre-production; and another four recently announced. I'm sincere when I say: May they all open one day. ∏½