Not too far into The Daughter, Hedvig – the teenager of the title – endures a failed and fumbling sexual encounter in the woods. It is about as successful as human relations get for much of the film's duration.
Family woes seldom come more woeful: as The Daughter opens, chilly patriarch and mill owner Henry Neilson (Geoffrey Rush) informs his employees that their services will no longer be required. Among those affected are the resilient Oliver Finch (Ewen Leslie), who tells his wife, Charlotte (Miranda Otto), and tearaway teenage daughter, Hedvig (Odessa Young), that they have no need to worry.
Back at the big house, Henry is preparing to marry Anna, his far younger former housekeeper (Anna Torv). His estranged son, Christian (Paul Schneider), has returned from the US for the occasion, but prefers the company of his old chum Oliver to hanging out with dad.
Against this backdrop of simmering resentment, the revelation of a family secret threatens to tip the entire enterprise into scenery munching. Happily, no furniture was harmed during the making of this film. Theatre wunderkind Simon Stone's directorial debut – adapted from his own enthusiastically received stage version of Ibsen's The Wild Duck – has attracted actors with franchise films on their CV (Rush, Otto).
The results are worth the (presumed) pay cut. Working with meaty roles, the collective produce a delicate julienne of guarded feelings. Rush, in particular, is As You’ve Never Seen Him Before.
Thus, even Ibsen’s duck no longer seems like a lumbering metaphor. Director of photography Andrew Commis matches the on-camera restraint with elegant widescreen compositions that never suggest the dread phrase “filmed play”.
