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Lbe honest: Anya Taylor-Joy would make a great elf. If anyone can fly from tree to tree as if woven from gossamer and starlight, or appear on a moonlit branch looking as if he’s been summoned by a musical act, he’s the star of The Queen’s Gambit, The Witch and Furiosa. She’s great for Lord of the Rings, and it’s no surprise that she was cast as the elf Seren in the upcoming Andy Serkis-directed The Hunt for Gollum, as confirmed this week by the Hollywood Reporter.
You may have heard about the movie: Serkis is back as Gollum, Ian McKellen is back as Gandalf, and everything is close to the unnamed part, if necessary, the part of LotR in which Aragorn is accused of chasing, the one-time owner of the One Ring before the armies of Sauron until they reach him.
There is an important, if terrifying, idea to this story in the book: Frodo has the ring because Bilbo left it with him when he left for Rivendell at the beginning of the story. Throw it in the flames of Mount Doom and get to work. Some of you may think that’s why Tolkien himself only had a few pages to cover the story, even though it covers the better part of twenty years of actual events. But that didn’t stop Serkis, Peter Jackson (now producer) from thinking about joining.
This is where Taylor-Joy enters the scene. Seren, who is not mentioned in Tolkien, we are told is the “reliable, dangerous” Thranduil elvenking, who will be portrayed by Lee Pace from the Hobbit films. He is a Sindar elf, one of the tribes that decided to stay behind in Middle-earth when many of their relatives left to cross the sea to live forever in the Undying Lands, which means that they probably come from the forest of Mirkwood. In Tolkien’s stories, it is to Thranduil’s halls in the northeast of the ruined forest that Gollum is taken by Aragorn after the guard follows him. That’s where Gandalf arrives to question him.
This, by and large, we already know, is the search that should compel us if this new film feels like anything other than a piece of the price tag. The arrival of the uncredited Seren, especially as top actress Taylor-Joy, will give us some clues as to how the adventure is going. Aragorn’s plowing through Mordor and its grim exterior never felt like an enticing prospect. But what if he has a friend to accompany him along the way?
Enter Taylor-Joy. What if The Hunt for Gollum isn’t a Gollum movie at all, but an epic Middle-earth road movie about a hunky future king, a wildly handsome killer, and a pitiful cave gremlin who knows too much? Perhaps Seren and Aragorn begin as enemies, spend the second time arguing on the Dead Marshes as XNUMX Midnight Run, and then slowly learn to respect each other after realizing that, under the thick darkness of the forest and the mud of the Rangers, they are both trying to prevent the same catastrophic spill. Perhaps Seren is an outcast of Thranduil, sent from Mirkwood to ensure that this little beast does not bring the shadow of Mordor through the Woodland Realm. Perhaps the whole thing is a triad that hinges on the future of Middle-earth.
And yet even now we will be re-reading the same, dead swamp that Jackson waded through in The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Serkis gets a new chance to make his way through Middle-earth, McKellen gets a chance to finish perhaps his biggest role yet, and Jamie Dornan gets the thankless job of stepping into Viggo Mortensen’s muddy boots. It’s very recognizable, a Middle-earth action thriller, a beautiful swamp drama, a blockbuster action thriller. But we are still no closer to understanding why everything has to happen.
