Some roles change an actress’s career, and then some roles change her life. Neil Jordan’s fairy-tale thriller Ondine did both for 27-year-old Alicja Bachleda, who stars in the title role as a mysterious young woman caught in the net of the Irish fisherman Syracuse (Colin Farrell). Revived and stabilized, she is thought by both Syracuse and his physically ailing daughter to possibly be a selkie — the mythical sea-woman creature of Irish folklore. Ondine’s gifts for singing fish into Syracuse’s net and treating the sick girl only compound the suspicion; their increasing closeness sets up a romance both on- and offscreen (Bachleda and Farrell became an item on the set, having a son together in 2008), not to mention a quintessentially Jordan-esque meditation on a woman who isn’t what she appears to be.
Originally posted here:
The Verge: Alicja Bachleda
