A Quiet and Slow Puzzle of a Ghost Story: The Eternal Daughter (2022) - Reviewed

Courtesy of A24

Some movies can be enthralling for one viewer with a keen eye for details while for another viewer could literally fall asleep during the film.
 
It’d be reduction-istic to call The Eternal Daughter, directed by Joanna Hoag, ‘Tilda Swinton talking to herself for 90 minutes” because there are layers to this movie. However, the pieces of this puzzle present themselves in quiet, subtle ways. A casual viewing could result in a person missing the clues to the various layers of the story.
 
Or, as happened during the showing of the film I went to, someone snoring during the first twenty minutes of the film.
 
One of the masterful things about this film is Tilda Swinton playing dual roles as Julie Hart, a filmmaker, and her mother, Rosalind. The near-empty hotel they check into at the start of the film is a gorgeous old manor that Rosalind grew up in. Julie takes her mother there for the mother’s birthday, and so that she can start to write/create a new film. But, unbeknownst to Rosalind, the film is about the mother’s time in that old hotel/former manor. Julie slyly records her mother talking about memories of her time growing up at the manor/hotel as material for the film.

 
The film adds layers from the very first scene. The hints and clues could be easily missed, though, and the film could be compared to past ghost stories (but to say which one would be way too spoiler-ish). The layers and the meta-ness help this to stand out from other films that seem superficially similar.
 
This is a film for viewers with patience, though this reviewer’s patience was tested while watching it. When the credits rolled, multiple people chuckled a ‘That’s it?’ sort of chuckle.

--Eric Beach