By 
By Roger Costa
Some of the finest Award-winning actors currently working in independent films, star in this adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s novel “The Wild Duck”, offering superb performances. The cast includes Geoffrey Rush, as a mysterious wealthy contractor forced to shut down a mine, leaving hundreds of families unprovided, Sam Neill as an important key to the film’s biggest dilemmas, Miranda Otto as a local housewife, and Paul Schneider as the protagonist Christian, who comes back home after many years for his father’s wedding, resurfacing a family tragedy, hidden secrets and unsolved matters. Written and directed with enormous intensity and cautious details by Simon Stone, this complex drama collected great ravings from audiences as an Official Selection at both Venice and Toronto Film Festivals.
The story follows Christian as its core, as he’s experiencing a 30-something existential crisis, dealing with his unsettled love relationship, the conflicts with his estranged father, the incapability of forgiveness and the ghosts from the past still hunting him. Paul Schneider delves deeply into his character, giving a tremendously raging performance filled with anger, uncertainty, despair and loneliness. Through Christian, Director Stone moves the camera to depict other conflicts surrounding, a coming-of-age experience of a schoolgirl, and the unemployment crisis, seen through the consequences of family displacements. Odessa Young gives a stupendous breakthrough performance as the teen caught up amidst the conflicts; the daughter of Christian’s long-time friend Oliver (played fiercely by Ewen Leslie), she becomes the most important piece of the puzzle.
She was recently named Best Lead Actress winning the prestigious Australian Film Institute Award, along with Miranda Otto who plays her mother named Best Supporting Actress, and a Best Adapted Screenplay Award for Mr. Stone. A promising directorial debut, “The Daughter” tells its dramatic stories with the intensity and complexity of a brilliant thriller, exposing clues without spoiling, and efficiently hiding important secrets until its unexpected climax.
THE DAUGHTER (Opens Friday, January 27th at Cinema Village, NYC and on February 3rd at the Laemmle Royal in LA, followed by national release).
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