Film Review: MAGPIE (2024): Sam Yates’ Slow-Moving Drama is Almost Redeemed by the Lead Performance by Daisy Ridley

Magpie Review

Magpie (2024) Film Review, a movie directed by Sam Yates, written by Tom Bateman and starring Daisy Ridley, Shazad Latif, Matilda Lutz, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Alistair Petrie, Niall Wright, Andy M Milligan, Cherrelle Skeete, Jenny Galloway, Emmet Kirwan, Matthew Spencer, Hiba Ahmed and Karel Bojan Hutter.

In director Sam Yates’ rather dull at times new film, Magpie, Daisy Ridley plays a woman named Anette who is brave enough to cut her hair short as her writer husband, Ben (Shazad Latif), seemingly runs around having an affair with a high-profile actress, Alicia (Matilda Lutz). The length of her hair wouldn’t really matter if it wasn’t brought to Anette’s attention by a character about midway through the picture who divulges some rather unsettling information. Movies about affairs like the one this movie presents feel tame today as opposed to say in the 1980’s when movies like Fatal Attraction mastered the art of suspense surrounding the topic. This isn’t that type of movie, though. Not at all, unfortunately. It’s super slow-moving in the beginning although it feels like its building to a very intriguing climax and, though the film eventually does, it is Ridley’s performance within the film that manages to keep it watchable.

Anette has two kids. One is a baby boy she raises while her older daughter, Matilda (Hiba Ahmed), shoots a movie she’s acting in with Alicia as Ben stands around lusting after Alicia. When Anette goes to the set of her daughter’s costume drama movie that she’s working on, Anette talks to a production assistant named Emily (a superb Cherrelle Skeete) who helps her feel comfortable on-set. The problem with Magpie is that it wants us to care about Anette’s husband screwing her over when, although it would break apart her family, is probably the best thing for the marriage to move to the next level: divorce.

The affair between Ben and Alicia is rather lame overall. She says she’s read a book of his but can’t tell him which one which should automatically hint they’re a mismatch especially considering that Ben has a couple of kids with a fierce, strong woman like Anette but, as previously suggested, meandering men are the worst kind to stay in relationships and leaving him is probably the best thing for Anette.

Daisy Ridley has made some very good to great movies like this year’s masterwork, Young Woman and the Sea. This new film is so threadbare, though, it barely exists in the same realm. Magpie is like a run-of-the-mill TV movie, particularly when Alicia and Anette get to meet, and a lie Ben told is unveiled which further complicates an already complicated issue. Ridley’s performance is powerful, however, which keeps us watching and waiting for a twist the movie undoubtedly seems to have up its sleeve.

Shazad Latif, as the husband, isn’t really plausible in his role. Ben needed to have more charisma and appeal that would lead the audience to believe that Anette would actually be in a relationship with him at all. He’s an OK father but that’s it. Meanwhile, Alicia’s loneliness is also somewhat of a major fault the movie simply cannot overcome despite the best efforts of actress Lutz who seems to believe her lines even if she can’t make the viewer believe them. We needed to believe these lines for the final twist to work.

I liked Ridley’s work, though. Hiba Ahmed is charming as Anette’s daughter, Matilda. The movie just flows like molasses in the opening stages, though, only to pick up momentum as we get glimpses inside Anette’s turmoil regarding Ben’s affair. Although the twist ending gets Yates to sort of pull off the overall goals of his UK based drama, the movie relies too much on Ridley’s performance rather than letting the other performers’ actions develop organically on-screen to make them plausible and make the plot more relatable. As it is, it’s simply a woman watching to see if her husband is the jerk we all know he probably is and then doing something about it.

Magpie has some surprising and weighty themes. The desire to hold oneself together through reliance on the family unit is an interesting topic. Ridley commands the viewer’s respect and also adds a bit of dignity to the “woman scorned” role that has been done before but not always with as much conviction Ridley brings to the role. Still, Magpie relies too heavily on a third act, last-minute revelation that will ultimately be underwhelming to those who wanted more from this overstuffed and ultimately half-baked story line.

Rating: 6/10

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