Joanna Hogg fans will be more forgiving than most while watching The Eternal Daughter, the kind of self-analytical autobiographical film in which the director’s avatar comes off as a very annoying figure indeed. Even more explicitly than in The Souvenir Part II (yet considerably less involving), Hogg’s latest exploration of mother-daughter relationships is unabashedly meant to mirror her own, with an emotionally fragile upper-class filmmaker protagonist, played by Tilda Swinton, trying to write a movie about her emotionally insulated mother, played by Tilda Swinton: the stiff-upper-lip generation versus its opposite. Set over a few sunless days in a lugubrious country house hotel swathed in mist, The Eternal Daughter is designed as a ghost story, but Hogg uses all the trappings in such a well-worn manner that the atmosphere feels dull rather than spooky, and the ending contains no surprise. While impressive that most of the dialogue —pitch perfect, fully of its class – is improvised, and Swinton’s performance can be assigned to acting students, the conceit of using the actress for both roles creates a vacuum that’s rarely filled. Martin Scorsese’s presence as executive producer plus Hogg’s art house rep will translate into limited distribution.
Apparently it was Swinton’s idea to play both roles, despite hardly needing to prove her versatility. One’s hard-pressed to identify what it is about the concept, apart from a certain “look what I can do” element, that made the filmmaker feel it was right for the story, though the dead space so often existing between the two Swintons, with its shot-counter shot editing, could conceivably be a way of emphasizing how certain women of an earlier generation didn’t reveal their innermost thoughts, least of all to their children. They were, for some, emotional strangers to those closest to them, and perhaps the void generated by Hogg’s conceit was considered fitting for the subject. Unfortunately, rather than drawing in our sympathies, it leaves us studying differences in facial ticks and age make-up rather than character.
Daughter Julie and mother Rosalind (Swinton and Swinton) arrive via taxi at Moel Famau Hall in Wales with the latter’s spaniel Louis. The country house hotel (shooting was done at Soughton Hall) is a heavy, inharmonious pile whose glowering presence is mirrored by the deeply unpleasant receptionist (Carly-Sophia Davies, having more fun than anyone else here). Julie chose this place because it was once owned by her mother’s aunt, and Rosalind spent considerable time there when she was a child and into adulthood. Though it appears there are no other guests, or even staff, they’re made to feel unwelcome.
Hogg ensures no sunlight enters the picture until (no surprise) the very last scene, adding to the feeling of disorientation – it’s impossible to tell what time of day it is apart from bedtime. The wifi barely works, there’s hardly a phone signal for when Julie tries to call her husband in the desolate formal gardens, and mysterious bangings in addition to the near constant sound of wind make sleep difficult. Rosalind is used to taking sleeping pills so it’s not an issue for her, but Julie’s anxiety, mirrored by the unsettled whimpers of Louis, means she’s barely getting any work done on her next script.
That project is meant to be about her mother, though Rosalind hasn’t been informed. Instead, when they reunite each day at mealtimes, Julie asks semi-probing questions which she secretly records. Like most women of a certain class and generation, Rosalind never shared her experiences during World War II and isn’t interested in talking about them now – she tightens her face ever so slightly and resists the probing, because what’s the point of churning all that up? Then she lets slip that it was in that house when she learned of her brother’s death, and suddenly Julie is devastated because she brought Rosalind there thinking it was a place of only happy memories. That’s rather hard to believe: as Rosalind says, some memories are happy, others aren’t, but what adult believes any location is imbued with only happy nostalgia? Julie is so upset her mother may potentially be discomfited that she cries and keeps apologizing, making the situation even more awkward.
Julie falls apart like this twice more, and to be honest, it’s rather exasperating. There’s an implied critique in this and other Hogg films that “keeping it all in” is wrong, and yet Rosalind is no cold fish: she expresses herself when necessary, and while she only tells the night porter Bill (Joseph Mydell) that Julie has a “wonderful capacity for the practical magic of love” – it’s the film’s best scene – rather than saying it to her daughter directly, the flaw lies equally in Julie’s inability to read her mother’s heart. Julie records her mother because she expects her to suddenly reveal things she never knew before, but then acts as if she imagined her mother led a trauma-free life: she can’t handle the fact that Rosalind was unhappy at times. In fact, it’s Julie’s inability to conceive of her mother as fully human that’s the main problem, though that doesn’t seem to be Hogg’s message. Instead what she appears to want to convey is that Rosalind’s inability to wear her emotions on her sleeve makes her a less happy person, which is poppycock. At one point Rosalind mutters to herself, “she’s such a fusspot” which is exactly right.
In fact, it’s difficult to imagine Julie as a person with the emotional wherewithal to be in charge of a film production. What The Eternal Daughter does get right however is the dialogue between mother and daughter, which as ever in a Hogg film precisely reproduces a certain kind of British upper-class speech. The ultra-politeness, the genial solicitation after one’s well-being, the quasi passive-aggressive desire “not to be a bother”: the words and phrases used are what one would hear in real life (Swinton knows this set well). Other details are also perfect, from the sensible, old-fashioned clothes that have never been updated to the blue-spined Penguin paperbacks they both read in bed.
Visually the film reproduces all the usual “Old Dark House” ghost story elements, including creaky empty corridors, penumbral lighting and a near-absence of color: the red toile wallpaper in the women’s bedroom is one of the only splashes of pigment. The darkness of course is deliberate, given some texture with 16mm, but it’s more wearying than disquieting. Shots of what appear to be low tombstones are lazily tossed in, just as the spectral presence Julie sees at the window each night feels gimmicky and makes the “surprise” ending even more expected. Joven Ajder’s enveloping sound design milks every low wind whistle for all it’s worth, melding it with spectral notes from a flute.
Director: Joanna Hogg
Screenplay: Joanna Hogg
Cast: Tilda Swinton, Carly-Sophia Davies, Joseph Mydell, August Joshi, Crispin Buxton
Producers: Andrew Lowe, Joanna Hogg
Executive producer: Rose Garnett, Martin Scorsese
Co-producer: Eimhear McMahon
Cinematography: Ed Rutherford
Production designer: Stéphane Collonge
Costume designer: Grace Snell
Editing: Helle le Fevre
Sound: Jovan Ajder, David Giles
Production companies: Element Pictures (UK)
World sales: A24
Venue: Venice Film Festival (competition); Toronto (Special Presentations); London (Special Presentations); New York
In English
96 minutes
