Sydney Film Festival - Film Review - Australian Premiere - The Daughter

Ewen Leslie, Odessa Young and Sam Neill - The Daughter

Another intense dysfunctional family drama. The Australian film industry never tires of this category of screenplay and The Daughter fits well within this genre. Simon Stone is another theatre director trying his hand at film-making and has brought his adaptation of Ibsen's The Wild Duck for the Belvoir St Theatre to the cinema screen. A very experienced expert cast do nothing to dispel the darkness that pervades every element of this film which involves a complex drama between two intertwined families. The story follows the impact created when Christian (Paul Schneider) returns to his family home for his father Henry's (Geoffrey Rush) wedding to a younger woman. Christian is a very damaged young man constantly haunted by the suicide of his mother many years earlier and with suspicions as to the cause of that tragedy. On his return he reunites with an old childhood friend Oliver (Ewen Leslie), an employee of Henry's timber mill which is now closing down, and Oliver's wife Charlotte (Miranda Otto) and teenage daughter Hedvig (Odessa Young). Through constant questioning and with a good dose of paranoia, Christian discovers that many years previously his father Henry, had an affair with Charlotte before her marriage to Oliver and this revelation sets the direction for another devastating tragedy to unfold.

These two families have many more hidden secrets to uncover during the course of the film showing how interconnected two generations have become. Geoffrey Rush, Ewen Leslie, Mirando Otto, Paul Schneider, Sam Neill and Odessa Young are well cast in their roles and the locations are atmospherically chosen. A clear deficiency with the plot line is the unresolved conclusion leaving the audience with little other than the personal devastation of the key characters in the film.