Handling shifts in tone from acutely observed vignettes of small-town life to scenes of tragic ferocity with deft assurance, this is an impressive fully-formed debut from Stone. It's stunningly performed, too, with special mention to Odessa Young.

| Sep 20, 2023

A gem, an emotionally affecting film that transcends melodrama to cut to the core of how people react and regret in the face of fidelity and betrayal.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 3, 2021

The Daughter is further elevated by excellent, natural performances from veterans and newbies alike. Leslie, in particular, delivers a standout portrayal: everyman optimism shattered by unthinkable betrayal.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Apr 17, 2019

Beautiful and powerful, The Daughter occasionally veers towards the melodramatic - but who cares when every element is this good?

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 2, 2019

Strong performances ramp up a constant high level of intensity which could perhaps have benefited from more contrast.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 21, 2019

... The Daughter, while sticking close in broad outline to Ibsen's 1884 masterpiece, moves with a fluid grace that's wholly cinematic...

| Dec 14, 2017

Things start bad and get worse.

| Oct 12, 2017

Beautifully shot on rural Australia, capturing both the wild beauty of the countryside and the desolation of the failing economy, the film betrays no evidence of its stage origins...

| May 4, 2017

As any kind of introduction to Ibsen, this film is more a turnoff than a turn-on.

| Original Score: C+ | Feb 3, 2017

Made with taste, skill and discretion, "The Daughter" demonstrates both the staying power of classic material and the risks inherent in bringing it up to date.

| Feb 2, 2017

While the acting draws us into the story, it plays like a daytime soap opera with really good actors and Australian accents.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 2, 2017

The Daughter offers a good but sadly wasted cast, obscured in the eye-rubbing mist of a foggy Down Under countryside and struggling to rise above the sludge of a basic soap opera with literary pretensions.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 1, 2017

The Daughter is a hauntingly beautiful portrait of two families torn apart by the secrets which connect them.

| Jan 30, 2017

The top-notch ensemble cast elevates an uneven but stylish adaptation that provides some haunting if improbable twists.

| Jan 27, 2017

The off-kilter handheld camerawork frequently chases after the figures as they move about. But there is no disguising that there's much more talk than action in The Daughter.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 27, 2017

A contrived, undercooked and overstuffed drama that can't be saved by its convincingly moving performances.

| Original Score: 5.9/10 | Jan 26, 2017

The characters don't have conversations so much as helpfully recite their back stories, and the long-buried secret is soon so obvious that the movie's last-act hysteria feels forced and a little ridiculous.

| Jan 26, 2017

In his atmospheric debut film, Australian theater director Simon Stone whittles down The Wild Duck into a cautionary tale about welcoming home an emotional exile.

| Jan 26, 2017

In the hands of a director who knew less about how to stage dialog this would have been a bit talky and feel like a lot of soap opera melodrama. Stone takes what could have been taken as exaggeration and leaves it with a realistic feel.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jan 25, 2017

An unflinching look at the incredible harm that can be done by secrets, adultery, and even honesty.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jan 24, 2017