---
title: "The Eternal Daughter"
year: 2022
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-eternal-daughter"
fi1m_id: "the-eternal-daughter"
imdb_id: "tt13874422"
tmdb_id: 790867
wikidata_id: "Q105227223"
fi1m_score: 76
critics_score: 78
critics_reviews: 16
published: "2026-09-10"
updated: "2026-09-18T08:38:04.460200+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# The Eternal Daughter (2022)

Directed by Joanna Hogg · 1h 36m · MPA PG-13 · Drama, Mystery

## Identity

The Eternal Daughter

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/the-eternal-daughter
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** the-eternal-daughter
- **IMDb ID:** tt13874422
- **TMDB ID:** 790867
- **Wikidata ID:** Q105227223
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13874422/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/790867, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q105227223

**Fi1m score: 76** · Critics 78 from 16 reviews

*In a sentence:* Tilda Swinton takes Tilda Swinton to Wales for her birthday and the hotel would rather they hadn’t come

> Joanna Hogg’s foggy ghost story has Tilda Swinton play both a film-maker and her ageing mother in an empty Welsh hotel. It is slow and barely frightening, but the sadness under it is real and it stayed with us.

## Synopsis

Julie, a film-maker in middle age, brings her mother Rosalind to a country house hotel in Wales for Rosalind’s birthday. Tilda Swinton plays both women. The house is one Rosalind stayed in as a girl during the war, and Julie hopes the visit will loosen her mother’s memories: she is trying to write a film about her. The taxi arrives in fog. The receptionist (Carly-Sophia Davies) says the hotel is full, though there is no one else in it. At night Julie lies awake to the wind, a banging window and footsteps overhead, while Rosalind sleeps and the dog Louis will not settle. Joseph Mydell appears as Bill. Joanna Hogg writes and directs.

## Review

Joanna Hogg has spent two films on Julie. In *The Souvenir* (2019) and *The Souvenir Part II* (2021) she was a film student, and her mother Rosalind was played by Tilda Swinton. *The Eternal Daughter* finds Julie in middle age, and this time Swinton plays both of them.

Julie has brought Rosalind to a country house hotel in Wales for her birthday. Rosalind stayed in the house as a girl during the war, and Julie, who is trying to write a film about her mother, hopes the rooms will get her talking. Hogg wants an old British ghost story, fog and floorboards and a hotel with nobody in it, and she wants an honest account of taking notes on your own mother while she sits across the table from you. She manages the second better than the first, and the second is what matters.

The double casting is the first thing anyone mentions, and for twenty minutes we watched for the join. Helle le Fevre cuts nearly every conversation as shot and reverse shot, and the two women so rarely share a frame that when they do it is a small shock. Then we stopped looking. Rosalind holds herself a little bowed, apologises before she disagrees and answers a question with a story about something else. Julie sits forward, notebook out, and hears every deflection as a door closing.

Ed Rutherford shoots it soft and grainy, and the grain and the fog do most of the haunting. The fog outside does not lift in 96 minutes. Inside, Stéphane Collonge has dressed the hotel in patterned wallpaper and dark wood, and Rutherford lights it with table lamps that reach about a yard. Grace Snell puts both women in the same muted greens and browns, so that from behind you could not say which is which. The soundtrack is wind, a window that bangs all night, and footsteps on a floor above where there should be no one.

The scene that got at us is the birthday dinner. Julie has fought the receptionist (Carly-Sophia Davies) for a cake, and it arrives with a candle into a dining room laid for two and built for forty. Rosalind is pleased in the small, careful way of a woman who decided years ago not to be a nuisance, and Julie watches her across the table, half daughter and half director. It moved us more than we were prepared for, and we were uneasy about being moved, because Julie is doing what Hogg is doing: making material out of a woman who did not agree to be material.

None of this is frightening, and we think Hogg knows it. The ghost-story furniture is set out with a straight face: the taxi (August Joshi at the wheel) creeping up the drive, the dog Louis barking at an empty corridor. Davies’s sullen receptionist is funny the first three times and asked to be funny about eight. There were two stretches in the middle, Julie pacing the corridors at night, where we were waiting rather than watching. Anyone who has seen a few ghost stories will be ahead of the film, and we will not say where it goes. Joseph Mydell, as Bill, turns up partway through with a calm the film needs by then.

Against the Souvenir films this is a coda rather than a third chapter. Without them it is a well-made, slow ghost story with one clever performance. With them it is sadder, because you have already watched this mother and daughter fail to say things to each other for two films, and here they are in a nicer house, still failing. Hogg has always made films about well-off English people in good rooms not quite saying what they mean, in *Unrelated* (2007) and *Archipelago* (2010). This is the first time she has used a ghost to get them talking.

It is a 12A and there is nothing in it a child could not watch. Watch it at home with the lights off and the phone in another room; it does not survive interruptions, and the second half pays back what the first half asks. Then ring your mother, if you still can, and ask about the house she grew up in.

*Fi1m score 76, published 10 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics like The Eternal Daughter, and they like it for the same two things. Nearly every review singles out Tilda Swinton’s dual performance as mother and daughter, praised for the small differences she finds between the two rather than the trick of it, and most admire the way Joanna Hogg borrows the shape of an old British ghost story, fog-shrouded hotel and all, to talk about memory and what parents keep from their children.

The reservations cluster around pace: several reviews call it slow or slight, and a few feel the genre borrowing stays at the level of pastiche, with The Hollywood Reporter comparing it to anthology television. The spread is narrow at the top and sharp at the bottom. The two real dissents come from the Evening Standard, which finds the double casting distracting and would rather another actor had played the mother, and The Times, which dismisses the film as a pandemic relic that even Swinton cannot rescue.

## Straight answers

**Is The Eternal Daughter worth watching?**

*The Eternal Daughter* is worth watching for anyone with the patience for a slow, foggy ghost story that is really about a daughter taking notes on her mother, and we scored it 76. It is barely frightening and sags in the middle, but the birthday dinner moved us more than we expected. Watch it without interruptions.

**How long is The Eternal Daughter, and what is it rated?**

*The Eternal Daughter* runs 1h 36m and is rated PG-13 by the MPA in the US. It is a drama and mystery film.

**Where can I watch The Eternal Daughter in the US?**

*The Eternal Daughter* is streaming on Tubi in the US, and it is also available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from $3.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How violent or frightening is The Eternal Daughter, and is it suitable for children?**

*The Eternal Daughter* is a 12A with nothing in it a child could not watch: no violence, no gore, and very little that frightens. The unease comes from fog, wind, a banging window and footsteps overhead, not from anything shown. Children are more likely to be bored than scared, and the squeamish have nothing to fear.

**How does The Eternal Daughter compare to The Souvenir?**

*The Eternal Daughter* is a coda to [*The Souvenir*](https://film.one/film/the-souvenir) rather than a third chapter, with Tilda Swinton now playing both Julie and her mother. The earlier film is the warmer and more dramatic, about a damaging first romance; this one is quieter, sadder and dressed as a ghost story. It can be watched alone, but it lands harder if you have seen where Julie began.

**What should I watch after The Eternal Daughter?**

After *The Eternal Daughter*, try [*The Souvenir*](https://film.one/film/the-souvenir) (2019, Fi1m 84): Where Julie began: a film student, the wrong man, and her mother in the background. Then [*Personal Shopper*](https://film.one/film/personal-shopper) (2016, Fi1m 76): Kristen Stewart waits for a dead brother to text back; grief as a ghost story.

### Reviews we read (26)

- **The AV Club**, Murtada Elfadl (A-): Hogg crafts a haunting atmospheric mystery that effectively conjures elusive memories through small incidents and explores parental relationships with delicate insight. Swinton delivers an achingly perceptive dual performance that separates and connects the characters emotionally. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/eternal-daughter-movie-review-tilda-swinton-joanna-hogg-1849832630)
- **The New Yorker**, Richard Brody (90/100, inferred): The review calls the film an astonishing tour de force for Swinton’s dual performances and Hogg’s direction in this third Souvenir film. It singles out the hotel as a virtual character and the movie’s metaphysical ghost-story elements for praise. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/the-eternal-daughter-reviewed-a-tour-de-force-for-tilda-swinton)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Justin Chang (85/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as a wondrous ghost story and marvelously atmospheric retooling of the haunted-house thriller, with Swinton’s dual roles as its most audacious and subtle magic. Hogg is praised for turning personal material into a deeply moving tribute with wit and affection. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2022-11-30/review-eternal-daughter-tilda-swinton-joanna-hogg)
- **Sight and Sound** (85/100, inferred): The critic highlights Tilda Swinton's dual performance as transcending gimmickry in a spectral Gothic tale that explores identity and mother-daughter bonds. Hogg uses the ghost story form to examine memory, space and the personal costs of making art about intimate relationships. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/eternal-daughter-review-smart-spooky-mother-daughter-double-act)
- **IndieWire**, David Ehrlich (B+): Hogg delivers a slender but haunted coda to the Souvenir films, a spectral reverse shot that beautifully enriches the story of her fictional avatar. Swinton shines in dual roles as the middle-aged Julie and her mother in this elegantly phantom-like ghost story. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/2022/09/the-eternal-daughter-review-joanna-hogg-1234758724/)
- **Empire**, Steph Green (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a feast of atmospheric delights with self-aware horror tropes and kitsch style. They single out the emotional clarity in the dual Swinton roles and the exploration of parental enigma and British repression. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/the-eternal-daughter/)
- **Little White Lies**, Catherine Bray (4/4/4): Swinton's dual role as mother and daughter delivers an eerie and effective portrait of parent-child relationships. The film serves as a subtle, moving extension of the Souvenir universe. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/the-eternal-daughter)
- **Radio Times**, Emma Simmonds (4/5): Hogg filters upper-middle-class awkwardness through a gothic ghost story in a beautifully shot film anchored by Swinton's distinct dual performance. It is atmospheric, sad and evocative of Hitchcock and The Innocents. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-b956ow/the-eternal-daughter/)
- **Screen Daily** (80/100, inferred): Hogg and Swinton deliver another resonant personal work that uses ghost story trappings to examine the mother-daughter bond. Swinton's dual performance is remarkable in this modest, intimate piece. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-eternal-daughter-venice-review/5174151.article)
- **The i Paper**, Christina Newland (75/100, inferred): The critic calls it a deliciously enigmatic mother-daughter psychodrama that rewards patience with its strange rhythms. They praise Swinton's remarkable dual performance and the film's elegant style evoking the unknowability of parents. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/eternal-daughter-review-tilda-swinton-remarkable-2770034)
- **Time Out**, Phil de Semlyen (3/5): The contemplative ghost story offers two strong Swinton performances in an ode to mothers and daughters that builds to an emotional payoff. It remains ruminative and borders on slow-going despite its personal resonance. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-eternal-daughter-2022)
- **Evening Standard**, Hamish MacBain (40/100, inferred): The critic finds the premise suspenseful but notes the dual Swinton roles prove distracting amid intimate conversations. They single out the unhelpful receptionist as a highlight while suggesting another actor for the mother would have improved the dynamic. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/the-eternal-daughter-movie-review-tilda-swinton-joanna-hogg-b1121966.html)
- **Film Comment**, Beatrice Loayza: Hogg crafts a gothic ghost story from the mother-daughter bond, with Swinton's dual role emphasizing alienation, memory, and subtle hauntings in a fog-shrouded Welsh hotel. The film blends autofiction with British horror aesthetics, using sound design, 16mm photography, and restrained performances to explore intergenerational trauma and self-reflection. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/the-family-plot-the-eternal-daughter-joanna-hogg-tilda-swinton-review/)
- **Slant Magazine**, Marshall Shaffer: Hogg's meta-fictional mother-daughter ghost story is honest and poignant in refracting the frustration of an artistic process that is only just beginning. It uses horror tropes to express absence and the challenges of cross-generational understanding, with Swinton's double casting amplifying the themes. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-eternal-daughter-review-joanna-hogg-tilda-swinton/)
- **The Guardian**: The critic describes an atmospheric drama with a gothic mansion setting and supernatural storytelling influences, focusing on grief, loss and family memories. It offers emotionally potent storytelling with a benign spookiness but stops short of genuine scares. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/nov/25/the-eternal-daughter-review-joanna-hogg-tilda-swinton-the-souvenir)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Leslie Felperin: The film is a partly effective stylistic swerve for Hogg into horror-tinged territory, with Swinton's dual performance providing emotional resonance at its core. It is undermined by overly academic pastiche of genre tropes that feels like schlocky anthology television. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/tilda-swinton-the-eternal-daughter-joanna-hogg-1235212578/)
- **The New York Times**, Manohla Dargis (Critic’s Pick): The critic praises the film as a lovely and haunted dream that showcases Tilda Swinton’s chameleon-like performances in dual roles as mother and daughter. Hogg’s casting choice is highlighted as the greatest stroke, with Swinton delivering fine-grained differences in the characters. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/01/movies/eternal-daughter-review-tilda-swinton.html)
- **The Telegraph**: The review highlights the double Tilda Swinton performance in a supernatural ghost story with a slow-build chill and sustained eerie atmosphere. It calls the film minor but effective in leaving a trail of sadness and creepiness. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/eternal-daughter-review-two-tilda-swintons-price-one-creepy/)
- **The Times** (★★☆☆☆): The critic dismisses the film as a pointless pandemic relic with atrocious dialogue, farcical horror and pointless experimentation in a deserted hotel setting. It finds even Swinton unable to salvage the grim, specious experiment. [Read](https://thetimes.com/culture/film/article/the-eternal-daughter-review-a-pointless-relic-from-the-pandemic-c5m6hf5qv)
- **The Playlist** (A-): The critic praises Swinton's effortless dual roles, the film's bewitching feminine Gothic atmosphere and memory themes, noting the final reveal as a gut punch while wishing for a stronger emotional crescendo. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/the-eternal-daughter-review-tilda-swinton-carries-dual-roles-with-ease-in-joanna-hoggs-atmospheric-drama-venice-20220906/)
- **The Skinny**, Rory Doherty (★★★★): Swinton's dual performance as mother and daughter creates deliberate distance and alienation in this continuation of Hogg's Souvenir films. The director adopts the mood of an 80s BBC ghost story, delivering gorgeous visuals and delicate observation, though the slow pace may feel slight to some. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/new-releases/the-eternal-daughter)
- **Collider**, Ross Bonaime (B): The critic sees the film as a fascinating personal extension of Hogg's Souvenir series, using ghost-story aesthetics to explore mother-daughter regrets and relationships. Swinton's dual performance and the emotional layering are singled out for praise, though the glacial pace is noted as a drawback. [Read](https://collider.com/eternal-daughter-review-tilda-swinton-joanna-hogg/)
- **/Film**, Chris Evangelista (7/10): The critic highlights the spooky Gothic atmosphere and personal exploration of memories as haunting ghosts, commending the dreamy pacing and Swinton's subtle dual performance while acknowledging it may frustrate viewers seeking traditional ghost story action. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/1005992/the-eternal-daughter-review-tilda-swinton-haunts-herself-in-joanna-hoggs-eerie-drama-tiff/)
- **Film Stories**, Lauren Miles: The critic finds the film visually charming and atmospheric with strong Gothic elements and Swinton's dual performance, but criticizes the glacial pacing and slight narrative that makes it a challenging watch. [Read](https://filmstories.co.uk/reviews/the-eternal-daughter-review-tilda-swinton-faces-her-familys-past/)
- **Paste**, Brianna Zigler (7.5): The critic is most captivated by the film's gorgeous, classic-Hollywood-inspired atmosphere and technical craft, which evoke a timeless spooky mood. The mother-daughter story is deemed adequate but occasionally overstays its welcome. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/joanna-hogg/the-eternal-daughter-review)
- **The Wrap**: The critic finds the film a haunting, atmospheric expansion of Hogg’s Souvenir universe into a ghostly meditation on memory, regret, and mother-daughter bonds. Swinton’s dual performance is singled out as the anchoring achievement that makes the meta storytelling and eerie mood work. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/the-eternal-daughter-film-review-tilda-swinton-plays-mother-and-daughter-in-ghostly-souvenir-sequel/)

## Details

- **Director:** Joanna Hogg
- **Director:** Joanna Hogg
- **Writer:** Joanna Hogg
- **Cinematography:** Ed Rutherford
- **Editor:** Helle le Fevre
- **Production design:** Stéphane Collonge
- **Costume design:** Grace Snell
- **Producer:** Andrew Lowe, Emma Norton, Joanna Hogg
- **Cast:** Tilda Swinton as Julie / Rosalind; Joseph Mydell as Bill; Carly-Sophia Davies as Receptionist; Louis as Louis; Crispin Buxton as Cousin; August Joshi as Taxi Driver; Alfie Sankey-Green as Boyfriend (uncredited); Zinnia Davies-Cooke as (uncredited)
- **Runtime:** 1h 36m
- **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13
- **Release (the US):** 2 December 2022
- **Genres:** Drama, Mystery
- **Box office:** $568,330
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hJR8hEsLZU

## Where to watch in the US

- Tubi: free
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, sd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $12.99, sd

*Checked 2026-09-10.*

Also available in: BE, FI, FR, GB, IN, NL, NO, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *The Innocents* (1961): Deborah Kerr, a big house and children who know more than they say.
- *The Souvenir* (2019), Fi1m 84: Where Julie began: a film student, the wrong man, and her mother in the background. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-souvenir.md)
- *Autumn Sonata* (1978): Bergman puts a mother and daughter in one house for a night and lets them speak.
- *Personal Shopper* (2016), Fi1m 76: Kristen Stewart waits for a dead brother to text back; grief as a ghost story. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/personal-shopper.md)
- *Whistle and I'll Come to You* (1968): Michael Hordern alone in a hotel bedroom; the BBC ghost story this one descends from.

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-eternal-daughter