Daphné

Daphne is a timeless British film. By which I mean it could have pretty much been made at any time in the last 50 years, and be just as 'meh.' It's one of those films that turns up on the telly and you look at the fashion and the streets but wonder why you're actually watching. It's a slight tale of a rather unlikable lonely girl who doesn't really know what to do with her life. Emily Beecham gives a believable performance but with a male writer and male director it is ultimately a bloke's fantasy idea of a 20something single girl about town. Everyone spouts their arch clever philosophies but anything that happens to Daphne doesn't really seem to affect her. That said, she's probably hardened by all those ghosts she used to hunt (which has clearly had an effect) and I applaud the film-maker's willingness to hold back Fred, Shaggy and Velma until the sequel.

I have a friend who I always thought as a liberal version of myself who live as what other people think about him doesn't matter which is the only major difference I see between him and myself. While watching Daphne I was thinking here is a female version of him. So extending that in a way Daphne was a very relatable experience to me. Emily Beecham is incredible as the confused and miserable Daphne who quotes Zizak and Freud but doesn't know if that really means anything to her. Exposing her as almost a bitch character and slowly showing her life where she doesn't find any meaning and to an extent just want to run away from everything and doesn't want to find anything. The only problem I have with the film is that it ended too soon, they should have explored a bit more of her life and thoughts or maybe it was perfect and I just want life to be bigger than it is while it isn't and never really taking an initiative to make it just like Daphne.

Seen at the Viennale 2017: Seems to be a new trend. To follow female young women with close-up camera through their daily life's. Has something to do with new camera techniques, I assume. Because faces of people can tell stories of their own, somebody can make easily a "character study" instead of a well told story with interesting characters. I appreciate that such movies are a psychological help for up-growing young girls (I hope they find their way to pictures like this). But for an adult they are quite boring. Daphne is the typical woman, more on the conservative side of thinking. A girl of our day. I can watch character studies of them all around me, without going to the movies...

I get it, not all characters have to go through great changes in a movie, but following such an unlikeable person for 90 minutes with no payoff at any time was a disappointment. Why did they cut all the interesting supporting characters loose? Are we supposed to feel as lost as Daphne feels? There where many opportunities to make this a way better film but I felt that it didn't go anywhere. Movie looked great at times though and the acting was good.

"'Daphne' is the vibrant character portrait of a young woman on the threshold of a much-needed change." A film premise can hardly be more vague, yet that one sentence is a fair reflection of the plot. This is a movie that's greatly understated, with only scarce moments of vividness punctuating the runtime.

Emily Beecham draws every last vestige of nuance that she can out of her starring role as the title character. Daphne is morose, and somewhat despondent, in her directionless candor. She eventually shows just enough real honestly to reveal at least part of the reason behind her jaded agitation. But what's funny is that she doesn't seem drastically different from other characters in her demeanor, even as the film works tirelessly to set her apart.

This is curious. There are very few shots that don't center on Daphne, and even as she's consistently going nowhere in her life, it's a good guess that at least least half the movie is her walking or taking transportation to one place or another, or no place at all. It feels like 'Daphne' has a message it wants to say, something profound, but it stops short of meaningfully doing so. Like the character it focuses on, the film mostly just seems to abide, without any particular rhyme or reason. Maybe I'm just not properly attuned to pick up on its subtleties, but I watch this with an open mind, and no expectations, and just feel flummoxed.

I think the most I can say is that I do recognize myself as a viewer in Daphne. Having myself struggled with depression for years, I gather the same questioning in Daphne's distant self-isolation of what she's doing with her life, or what it's all for. Beyond that smudged mirror, I admit I'm having a hard time finding especial value here. I feel bad even saying that, but I'm kind of at a loss.

It's well made in a technical sense. It's not outright bad. But I simply don't know what it is that this movie wants to be, any more than its protagonist knows what she wants to be. 'Daphne' is a film to watch for those viewers with extraordinary patience, who appreciate the most unglamorous and uneventful of character studies. For any more general audience - well, good luck, and maybe you'll discern something here that I missed.