River Queen – A Review

For some directors you abandon judgement. Maybe it’s a movie that seduced you, maybe it’s an interview they gave once, maybe it’s just down to contrariness on your part, but you fall in love and –as a critic – you’re cooked. It’s like that with Vincent Ward, for me. Ever since I heard him describe the “wooden planet” where he intended to set Alien 3, he had me. Ward has that auteur’s combination of bloody-minded guilelessness and eyes fixed on a far horizon. His “wooden planet” offers a perfect metaphor for his approach; it’s almost impossible to visualise (let alone understand) and yet… a wooden planet…. Even as you dismiss the idea, it sticks. Ward’s new movie, River Queen, is a disaster on many fronts, but I’d defend it, and him, to my last breath.