Review of The Daughter (2015) by Kim W — 30 Mar 2016

This film will leave your heart aching and your eyes wide with shock. The 2015 Sydney Film Festival featured the world premiere of Simon Stone's The Daughter.

With Geoffrey Rush on the poster, as well as Sam Neill, I am hoping this is enough to bring in the larger audiences it deserves.

Based on Stone's internationally acclaimed adaptation of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck at Belvoir, and produced by Jan Chapman, this cinematic version follows the story of two generations of families colliding against a backdrop of an 'anywhere' regional Australian town - a wood mill closing sets off a domino effect of loss and sorrow. The school becomes empty of children, as families move towards the city for work.

Secrets are riddled in relationships, and it is when Christian (Paul Schneider), a family friend, comes visiting from America that those secrets flow between the cracks. Unlike water off a duck's back, they bleed out and stain the feathers.

Performances all round were strong, and after seeing the film at a special AFI filming, it is inevitable that young Odessa Otto, as Hedvig, is one to watch. The strongest performance was from Ewen Lesley - it's the kind of performance where I wanted to reach in and save him from the twist we all sensed was coming. It was even at my second viewing I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it coming sooner.

Previously working on the stage adaptation, Lesley stated that Stone 'understood the restrictions placed upon him as a director of film - it was usually the raw untampered performances which he [Stone] used in the edit - leaving an opportunity to improvise and be sporadic in the limited time we had for takes'.

The Daughter proves a strongly cast Australian film, do not miss this opportunity to see it in a cinema.