3/10 In a dual performance from Tilda Swinton as a middle aged daughter (Julie Hart) and her elderly mother, “The Eternal Daughter” features several scenes of Rosalind (mother) dozing off and falling asleep in her old age. Watching this movie feels a lot like that. This is the third movie I’ve watched from overrated writer/director Joanna Hogg and her movies are consistently boring and seemed to only be aimed at women over 65 years old and pretentious “critics” who will often praise any movie directed by any woman just due to the identity politics. There is really no other explanation of how much praise her movies get. “The Souvenir” and its sequel also wasted strong performances and were overly long and boring while being praised by “critics”. While thankfully not overly long, this movie did make an hour and a half feel closer to two hours in length due to the incredibly slow pacing and pointless scenes. Before I get further into why this movie should be avoided, I will point out the strengths. Tilda Swinton continues to be one of the greatest actresses of her generation and brilliantly pulls off two roles here. She has collaborated with Hogg several times and I can’t wait to see her collaborate on a David Fincher film next year so I can finally see her in a more interesting film (“Three Thousand Years of Longing” was solid and exciting earlier this year). The other positive is that Hogg does do a solid job of setting the mood and tone. The movie takes place in a seemingly haunted hotel and the heavy fog, gloomy clouds, seclusion, loneliness and sense of dread are all well conveyed. Despite the pacing issues, I was thankful that the movie kept to a shorter running time. I do tend to enjoy bottle films that keep to one or two locations and have minimal characters. Unfortunately, despite Hogg’s symbolism and deeper meanings with what happens in this movie, I simply didn’t care about any of it. You can have all the symbolism, messages, commentary, etc. you want but if your movie isn’t interesting, moves slower than Joe Biden and spends way too long on scenes of dog walking and walking around a hotel alone at night, then no one will care. You would think that a creepy, dark and haunted hotel with possibly a ghost peering through a window would be thrilling, terrifying and keeping the audience on edge but every situation that begins with some mystery or excitement of the unknown ends up going nowhere and resulting in nothing exciting or meaningful happening. Maybe Hogg was a solid film maker in her younger days as many film makers go soft and become overly sentimental in their old age but after having watched her last three overrated and boring movies, I don’t even care to check out her earlier work. Swinton needs to stick with the George Millers and David Finchers of the world moving forward.
#JoannaFogg / #EternallyBoring / #ColdHarted / #TheDeadDoDie / #WritersChipOffTheOldBlock / #OnlyDaughtersLeftAlive
Top Pun Reviews 