Three generations of Finches (Ewen Leslie, Odessa Young, and Sam Neill) find themselves in the calm before the storm in THE DAUGHTER
THE DAUGHTER (Simon Stone, 2015)
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The Daughter is a taut Australian melodrama from actor, director, and writer Simon Stone, his feature directorial debut, inspired by his 2014 stage adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck for Sydney’s Belvoir St Theatre company. The film builds slowly, teasing out the tension, until it gets so wrapped up in itself that the stream of revelations unfolding near the end feels overwrought and anticlimactic, as viewers will have figured out many of the twists much earlier. Still, it’s a compelling tale, well acted by a solid cast, although one overblown character nearly brings it all tumbling down. Ne’er-do-well prodigal son Christian (Paul Schneider) has returned home for the first time in fifteen years, for the wedding of his father, Henry (Geoffrey Rush), to his much younger housekeeper, Anna (Anna Torv). The wealthy local mill owner in a rural New South Wales town, Henry has just announced that his factory is closing. Christian, an alcoholic who is having problems with his girlfriend, Grace (Ivy Mak), and has never gotten over his mother’s death, reconnects with his childhood friend, Oliver (Ewen Leslie), a millworker who is married to Charlotte (Miranda Otto); they have a lovely daughter, teenager Hedvig (Odessa Young), a smart girl who is very close to her grandfather, Walter (Sam Neill), who takes care of a forest on his property as well as a home-made sanctuary for injured animals. Long-held secrets begin to emerge, spinning both families into severe crises as the past refuses to stay hidden.
Odessa Young is outstanding as fourteen-year-old girl whose life is about to be turned upside down in debut feature by Simon Stone
Nominated for ten Australian Oscars and winner of three — Young for Best Lead Actress, Otto for Best Supporting Actress, and Stone for Best Adapted Screenplay — The Daughter can’t break free of its major flaw, though it tries — Christian might be the driving force behind the narrative, but the character, and Schneider’s performance, is too over-the-top in what is otherwise an intriguing and involving story with subtle touches. (For instance, Henry’s wood mill cuts down trees while Walter and Hedvig seek solace in a tree-laden forest.) Rush (Quills, Shine) is staunch as Henry, whose misdeeds trigger everything. Stone regular Leslie (Richard III, Stone’s The Wild Duck) and Otto (Lord of the Rings, The Last Days of Chez Nous) are terrific as a couple very much in love, but rising star Young steals the film as the blossoming fourteen-year-old Hedvig, whether acting with a fine Neill, nursing a wild duck shot down by Henry, or exploring her sexuality with her classmate Adam (Wilson Moore). She is definitely one to watch, as is Stone, who, at least for much of the film, expertly captures an uneasy atmosphere in which love grows ever-more-complicated minute by minute.