This haunting mystery from director Joanna Hogg begins in a thick, foreboding fog. The middle-aged Julie and her elderly mother (both played by the extraordinary Tilda Swinton in one of the greatest feats of her career) are led through a formal tree-lined driveway to an old hotel. Here they are to spend some quality time together, affording Julie the opportunity to glean details from her mother’s past in order to make a film about her life. All seems askew almost immediately, however, and the film grows ever-more spooky as long-suppressed secrets arise.
Elegantly shot on 35mm film in Panavision, with an evocative score and howling, wintry winds, The Eternal Daughter’s narrative is suffused with the spectre of loss and the remembrance of things past, ingeniously playing with the conventions of the ghost story without abandoning a warm and humanist beating heart.
