Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Indiana Jones Character Is A Fascinating Reflection Of Indy's Best And Worst Moments
This article contains spoilers for "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny."
One of the standouts of the latest Indiana Jones adventure is newcomer Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I mean, "newcomer" is a relative term. She's a newcomer to the series, of course, but if you've been paying attention you'll know that Waller-Bridge is a badass already. Between her tour de force as a writer, producer, and actor in "Fleabag" and her charismatic turn as L3-37 in "Solo: A Star Wars Story" she's already established herself as someone to watch, but she really turned it up a notch in "Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny" (read our review here) as Helena Shaw, where she straight up steals every scene she's in from her beloved co-star, who also happens to be the titular character.
Why do we love Helena Shaw so much? That answer is more complex than just "Phoebe Waller-Bridge is great!" She absolutely is and you can not deny that her lively performance does a lot to lift up every scene she's in, but that's just part of the equation that makes her the standout of the movie. The other part of the equation is how the character was conceived.
There's more than meets the eye with this character
When we first meet Helena Shaw, she presents herself as a giddy archeology student, following in the footsteps of her late father, Basil (Toby Jones), and her adventuring godfather, Dr. Henry Jones Jr. Okay, that tracks. It might be a bit simple, but Waller-Bridge sells it with a wide-eyed wonder that is very disarming.
But then there's a twist.
Turns out that's all an act. Helena is really in it for the money, selling all the artifacts she can get her hands on to her black market connections and all her enthusiastic talk was really just her conning her godfather into handing over the piece of the Dial of Destiny in his possession. The more we hear about Helena, the more conniving she seems to be. While we don't get a full-on backstory for her, we do find out she has a mobster ex-fiancee, a ton of underworld besties, and, apparently, a pile of gambling debt she is desperate to pay off.
Helena knows her history inside and out, maybe even better than Indiana Jones, but she just uses that knowledge for fortune and glory, not for the advancement of knowledge.
Sound familiar?
Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory
What struck me by the end of "Dial of Destiny" is that Helena Shaw as a character was built to exist somewhere between the two Indiana Joneses we've seen on film. There's the Indy of "Temple of Doom," where he opens the movie trying to sell a priceless artifact to a Chinese mobster in exchange for a big ol' diamond, and the Indy of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "The Last Crusade" who thinks all artifacts belong in a museum.
Keep in mind, "Temple of Doom" happens before "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in the Indiana Jones timeline. One of the reasons I love that movie so much is we see the Indiana Jones we fell in love with in "Raiders" be born. That character spends the first half of the movie chasing fortune and glory and comes out the other side of it the altruistic hero we know and love, the man who will fight for what's right and whose obsession with history is focused on preservation and not exploitation.
We have to acknowledge that the opening flashback of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" retcons Indy's arc in "Temple of Doom" a bit with the young version of the character, played by River Phoenix, triumphantly declaring "It belongs in a museum!" to the grave robbers who steal the Cross of Coronado, but that doesn't change the fact that the Indiana Jones of that darker second entry in the series was in it for all the wrong reasons.
'Dial of Destiny' is Helena Shaw's 'Temple of Doom'
Helena Shaw is closer to the Indy of "Temple of Doom." She has the vigor of youth and is cocksure and arrogant, but in a supremely charismatic way. It's also worth noting that she is extremely horny on main, flirting with hunky sailors and any attractive dudes that cross her path during the course of "The Dial of Destiny." This is yet another trait she shares with her godfather and a nice change of pace for the series which has been predominantly focused on Indy's attraction to the ladies (and their attraction to him).
It took Indy having a brush with the supernatural to find his moral center. He was exposed to black magic, fell under its spell, and came out the other side with a newfound righteous anger at those oppressing the child slaves and a resolve to return the Sankara Stone to its rightful place.
Helena hasn't had that experience yet. This is her "Temple of Doom" where she sees some magic in the world and by the end of "Dial of Destiny" I get the feeling that she's in a similar place as Indy was at the end of "Temple of Doom" and the beginning of "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
A welcome addition to the Indiana Jones family
Somehow the screenwriters and Waller-Bridge herself came up with a character that embodies everything I love about Indiana Jones without making it feel like a simple gender-flipped heir to the franchise. Helena Shaw is thoroughly her own character, injecting a youthful vigor that was missing in "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," bursting with echoes of the character tropes you love from this series, but without feeling like a dull retread.
My guess upon first viewing is that the writers got the character in just the right place to feel at home in the world of Indiana Jones and Waller-Bridge completed the circle by just having a ball with the character, whether it's the horndog con-woman side of Helena Shaw or the more humane and caring side that she finds during her adventure.
Whatever the specific combination of elements that led to the final version of the character we see on screen, Helena Shaw steals the show in "The Dial of Destiny" thanks to her moral complexity, the happy glint in her eye when the swashbuckling action starts, the youthful, devil-may-care attitude constantly on display, and the big, beating heart underneath all those layers.