The Daughter

Henry (Geoffrey Rush) is the master in a town where his logging company is the main attraction. His wife has passed away long ago and so he decides to remarry. This coincides with his decision to close the logging factory due to falling sales. The town is imploding but he wants to pull out all these stops for his wedding day.

His estranged son, Christian, has also returned from America and immediately reconnects with old friends and this includes Oliver and his wife and daughter. He has long born a grudge with his father and as old tensions resurface so do nagging questions from the past. It is the answer to those questions that are the setting for the calamity of the future and a delve into the darkness that the past can often hold.

This is a smouldering watch, all the performances are brilliant especially Odessa Young as Hedwig and Ewen Leslie as Oliver. We also have a fine performance from Rush and the ever reliable Sam Neil – both acting royalty in Australia. It keeps the tempo up almost from the start and is a credit to Screen Australia for investing in such a commendable piece of cinema.

Solid generational drama with real, palpable narrative momentum. The actors were fabulous, it looks fantastic, and the script is top notch. It doesn't hurt to have Ibsen behind you, but this movie goes far beyond the constrictions of a stage production. The only real problem for this movie is the obviousness of the premise from very early on. Some of the drama is leaked out of the story because of this. It's still a worthwhile watch though, because it's carried off quite well. The lack of suspense of what the situation is becomes the suspense of what the characters are going to do about it when it plays itself out. And unlike many other movies with this structure, the actors are all up to the task.

I was lucky enough to see this film today at the Sydney Film Festival....adapted from Henrik Ibsens late 19th century play ''The Wild Duck'' but totally rewritten and retold into a modern Australian story set,maybe in the logging areas of Tasmania but actually filmed around the very atmospheric Snowy Mountain towns of Tumut and Batlow. The acting is superb, particularly the wonderful Ewen Leslie who just gets more magnificent in each role he takes on...Script and cinematography add to the overall brilliance of this terrific Jan Chapman production....a must see for all lovers of great Aussie films both here and overseas...I cant wait to see it again on its general release

Untangling the narrative thicket of The Daughter is not easy and the plot line is slow to unfold. It helps to take a step back and look at the story as a metaphorical collision between a single ray of truth and the lie that connects two families. It is only at this thematic level that we can understand why Henrik Ibsen's 1884 play The Wild Duck keeps reappearing on stage and screen. The Daughter is the latest re-imagining, with new characters and a modernised story that retains the glasshouse fragility of lives built upon secrets. It is timeless precisely because secrets are a part of life, yet some are so destructive that a few words can be a missile that shatters everything.

A gunshot is fired at the start and end of the film, and in between is a high-tension wire that is slowly pulled tighter and tighter until it snaps. When a timber mill closes in an unnamed Australian town disgruntled workers are laid off while the aloof and wealthy owner Henry plans to marry his much younger former housekeeper. His estranged son Oliver returns for the wedding looking for someone to blame for his mother's suicide. When Oliver learns of his father's previous infidelity he feels compelled to reveal all. Tensions explode when Oliver tells his best friend Christian, as the affair involved his wife and now affects the relationship with his daughter Hedvig. One revelation of a buried truth triggers a chain of events that nobody can control.

Although melodramatic and claustrophobic as family relationships can be, the story gathers pace in the second half, carried forward by outstanding acting from a stellar cast. It is beautifully photographed in Gothic style with haunting atmospherics amidst iconic landscapes reminiscent of The Piano (1993). Several overlapping scenes and restless camera viewpoints evoke the vulnerability of relationships teetering on lies. Often we are not sure who is the protagonist of the story as events unfold from various viewpoints but it is the daughter Hedvig who emerges as the innocent heroine tragically burdened by the sins of family. As she did in Looking for Grace (2015), Odessa Young plays the rebellious daughter and again her star shines brightly all over this film. Tense, challenging, and wonderfully crafted, this complex film mixes a psychological thriller with tragedy and its ending will leave you stunned.

In the grand old tradition of Australian films of the past 10 – 15 years, young theatre director/actor turned feature filmmaker Simon Stone's adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's play that has here become The Daughter is a sombre, bleak and sometimes hugely impressive film that's moments of greatness are sadly washed away by a tendency of over-dramatics and underdeveloped characters that hamper the films intentions to be the next big Australian drama kingpin.

Stone who had the fortune of gathering some of Australia's best talent in the form of Geoffrey Rush, Sam Neill, Miranda Otto as well as American actor Paul Schneider in the key role as the thankless Christian certainly had the tools at his disposal to create something special (something that he did from all reports on stage with this same story) but while The Daughter is a polished local production thanks in no small part of Andrew Commis's noteworthy work as DOP and Mark Bradshaw's effective score as well as the to be expected work of the experience cast, you can't help but feel as though The Daughter doesn't ring true in its most important moments and some players within this family drama barely get a chance to breathe in the 90 minute run time.

Christian may be our central figure here and his an unlikeable and tormented soul but relative newcomer Odessa Young gets the films biggest weight put upon her shoulders as the young and vulnerable Hedvig. Young's performance is solid without being overly impressive but Hedvig as a fictional creation is somewhat unengaging and with an important part to play in the stories proceedings as Hedvig and her family have to deal with unearthed secrets, Young can't bring the stories wannabe emotional payoff home despite the best attempts of those around her with a particularly disappointing final few minutes feeling rather underwhelming.

With supports from the aforementioned Neill, Rush and Otto, The Daughter is never allowed to fall down to any detrimental levels and while the shipped in Schneider doesn't get great rewards from his Christian, Stone shows himself a director to watch out for with his handling of stars and the mostly unknown Ewen Leslie as the hard done by Oliver is another of The Daughter's participants that will likely benefit from a starring role in this well received production.

Devoid of much light and frivolity, The Daughter is as glum as Australian films get and while this Home and Away with a budget is sometimes too much to bare or care, there's enough impressive filmmaking going on here that Stone's film is a worthwhile watch for all those seeking out their next dose of Australian drama, like only we Australian's can make.

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