If you’re looking for a simple ghost story, Eternal daughter it’s not for you. But if you have the patience to stick to the strange and eerie rhythms of Joanna Hogg’s semi-gothic tale, you’ll be richly rewarded. This wonderfully mysterious mother-daughter psychodrama is a beautiful exploration of the unknowability of our parents’ lives and the gaps in even the closest relationships.
It is also the third part of a standalone series by the famous British director, consisting of Souvenir (2019) and Souvenir part II (2021). Julie, the middle-aged protagonist of this film, is apparently Julie from the previous films, played by Tilda Swinton’s daughter Honor Swinton-Byrne, and here by Swinton herself. And, of course, she is a director.
In fact, Swinton plays a fascinating dual role as both Julie (slender and active, with a wandering intellect) and her mother Rosalind (distinguished by her gray hair and dapper demeanor, dressed as if they were back in 1957).
History floats freely. On a foggy, dreary winter’s evening, they arrive by taxi and accompanied by their dog to a grand old mansion in the Welsh countryside, where they stay for both personal and creative reasons – Julie’s birthday and a possible film project. . While the two stay in this dark, creaky, possibly haunted hotel (a mysterious knocking in the night and the appearance of a ghostly face are frightening), their relationship is formed through the conversations between them.
Rosalind remembers her childhood during the Blitz in this building, where her aunt looked after her and other children sent away from London for their safety. Today, the only people who seem to live at the hotel are a useless hotel employee (a very funny Carly-Sophia Davis) and a gardener (Joseph Mydell), who hangs out with Julie. Much of the film revolves around these dialogue scenes, conveying information through the sidelong glances of the wonderful Swinton, who brilliantly embodies mother and daughter in different ways and, despite his dual role vanity, never hits a false note.
As Rosalind shares memories of her past with her daughter and records conversations with journalistic intent, reality itself seems to shimmer with uncertainty.
Hogg’s talent lies not so much in the plot twists, but in the style and expressive power of the images: they have a Hitchcockian classicism. Eternal daughter. The style is detached and elegant, with a reduction in small details such as Rosalind’s careful removal of a pill from a bunker, giving a good sense of her characters.
The cumulative effect is a creeping, creepy mixture of past and present, a horror film without horror, and a mother-daughter relationship in which the line between intimacy and discomfort is always on a knife’s edge.
Source: I News
I am Mario Pickle and I work in the news website industry as an author. I have been with 24 News Reporters for over 3 years, where I specialize in entertainment-related topics such as books, films, and other media. My background is in film studies and journalism, giving me the knowledge to write engaging pieces that appeal to a wide variety of readers.