The Daughter (2015)

Sick Product of a Sick System

Instant Favorite.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

We stopped watching as the direction and the acting were not good. I am surprised the reviews, or most of them didn't seem to notice.

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.

There are spoilers in this review. The Daughter is an exceptionally well done film.The acting talents of Ewen Leslie, Odessa Young, and Sam Neiill are phenomenal. They bring to each of their characters believability, honesty, and vulnerability. Miss Young's last scene with the duck she has been caring for is the most touching. Sam Neill is incredible as the grandfather who truly loves his granddaughter. Ewen Leslie is tremendous as the betrayed husband who has done a great job raising the daughter he learns is not his. Paul Schneider does an excellent job convincing the audience that he is a broken man who has nothing else to lose but to tell his good friend the truth about his friend's wife and daughter. Geoffrey Rush is always good. I really enjoyed this film. Most of the films produced in Australia are very good.

Review: The Daughter — by BEV QUESTAD — Edvard Munch did not paint just one version of "The Scream." He painted four. His essential Norwegian character cannot avert his eyes from life's true circumstance and man's grotesque nature within it. He chooses not to fabricate an illusion to help disguise the depths of human failure, but starkly faces it in raw horror. Ibsen, writing 10 years before Munch paints, sets the truth and the illusion side by side and shows that in telling the truth, in facing what is, the horror is too great for us to handle. But like a determined, honest Norwegian, he still courageously drags us to the well, the dark abyss, and forces our heads to look down and see the truth as it is. This dark Nordic perspective is richly thought-provoking and certainly reflective of our current crazy political world. But is a film based on painful exposure something we'd like to see? So no, I didn't like the film at all despite the fact that is excellent. It's not that it isn't perfectly executed with a natural dialogue, explosive emotion and charged casting. It's not that every part of this film doesn't faithfully reflect the original Ibsen work, "The Wild Duck." It's that the truth, without the lies we contrive to make it through another day, can be too painful to bear and hard to watch on the screen. But why did Simon Stone, a young 32-year-old writer-director, who has already produced a documentary about himself, "The Talented Mr. Stone," get so deeply involved with this particular project? What is his fascination with Ibsen, and why did the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts award him the prize for best adaptation of a screenplay for this tortured production? At age 12,after an argument with his father, Stone witnessed his father, head of the molecular biology and biochemistry department at Monash University in Australia,die from a heart attack. He has stated that he has "always been attracted to stories that try and explore a family in crisis because that was the defining experience of my life." But since when does a pre-pubescent outburst kill a parent? Take this confounded confusion, passion, and guilt and you get Ibsen and Munch, the Norwegian specialists in true life horror and torment. Put them on the screen and you get Stone. Stone is obviously brilliant on many levels. "The Daughter" is too. Subtly modernized in a defunct lumbermill town, each character obfuscates a hidden life circumstance with an exterior story of cozy domestic bliss. Dad is marrying his young housekeeper, his son has flown in from the US waiting for his wife to join him, a boarder on the property is supported to explore his passion for photographic art, the boarder's wife and daughter, the loves of the photographer's life, enjoy the generous property woodlands and a grandfather dotes on his grand-daughter. All of this is set to parallel a contrived little garden where rescued bunnies and a wounded duck seemingly enjoy care and safety. But the American-ex pat, our Ibsen/Munch, the son who will soon have a much younger beautiful step-mother, becomes suspicious. Why did his mother die? What were her last thoughts? Who was the prior housekeeper? Who belongs here? Who is who? He seeks the truth and when he finds it thinks everyone must know – that it will be liberating. And then he gets a phone call. Why isn't his wife here yet? Is the truth really that great to know? Kino Lorber presents the US release of "The Daughter," an official selection at the Toronto, Venice, Melbourne and Sydney film festivals. This adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's "The Wild Duck" stars Academy Award winner Geoffrey Rush and opened at the Cinema Village in NYC on Jan. 27, and will open at the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles on Feb. 3. A national release will follow.