She was really badly miscast in this.
Linnet Ridgeway is meant to be a spoiled and unlikeable blue-blood. Why Kenneth Branagh cast a dark Israeli woman I don't know, but I have a theory about blond(e) Protestant Irishmen like himself, and I think there's an undercurrent of anti-Semitism among his people. They see Jews (he also cast the Jewish Alicia Silverstone as a wealthy princess in Love's Labour's Lost) as privileged and powerful, contrary to a history of oppression, ostracisation and even genocide. I've noticed that anti-Semitism is rife among most parts of Ireland, but ESPECIALLY among Scots-Irish people of Protestant/Unionist backgrounds.
Former IDF member, Gal Gadot, is NO spoiled blue-blood, although, alas, she's also arguably no actress either.
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