The Eternal Daughter (2023)

Joanna Hogg returns to dazzle us once more following her two sumptuous Souvenir films (2019-2021) with this ghost story starring Tilda Swinton in dual roles as both a young woman Julie, and her Mother Rosalind.

Mother and Daughter check into a remote and seemingly empty hotel, with Julie taking her Mother away for a few days shortly after her Father's death for a birthday treat; but also to spend time with her in the hopes of writing a film about her.

Whilst The Eternal Daughter has the hallmarks of a Hogg vehicle (at times it almost feels as if we're in the same world as The Souvenir films) it sparks a change for her, entering into the world of classic ghost tales that's wrapped around the enigma of Julie's Mother's life, which she thought she knew so well. It's an emotional family piece that spends huge stretches with its two main characters simply talking to each other, and this is one of the film's key strengths. Swinton is sublime, leaving just enough on display to convince you that the two characters are undoubtedly related, and yet remaining mysterious enough (especially as Rosalind) to hint at the character's potential secrets.

The hotel itself is disconcerting to say the least; when they arrive there appears to be a problem finding them a room despite the place looking completely empty, and apart from the frosty receptionist and the much more amiable groundsman, there appears to be no-one there. That's not to say there's nothing to hear of course, Julie finds her sleep frequently interrupted by strange banging noises, and when she takes her Mother's dog for a walk round the grounds each evening, she stares into the black abyss of a room beyond a window, drawn by something or someone.

The film nods to Kubrick's The Shining (1980) almost simply by being itself, but there's something more subtle going on here, Hogg also chooses to name Julie and Rosalind's room 'Rosebud', a diverting headscratcher towards Citizen Kane (1941) and although the film is a simple one in terms of plot, Hogg's fantastic sense of scene setting keeps The Eternal Daughter consistently gripping, even in its seemingly more mundane sequences.

The Eternal Daughter is certainly about relationships, and it focuses on familial ones within Julie and Rosalind's family. However obvious the affection is between the two of them, it's clear that Rosalind is upset that Julie will always be an eternal daughter rather than a Mother (she's chosen not to have children) and Julie certainly has her scruples with her Mother as well, cracks within the relationship that come to the fore during Rosalind's birthday dinner; a quite brilliantly eerie scene amidst an empty dining room where you can almost hear the tension in the air as well as in the characters voices.

Hogg's film is simmering with ghosts, although not necessarily visible ones. We establish that the hotel itself played host to evacuees during the war; the place is clearly steeped in history, and it's an atmosphere that stews and remains palpable for the duration of this quite excellent film. 8.4/10