Director Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter, starring Tilda Swinton, mesmerized audiences at this year’s Venice Film Festival with its quiet, arresting story about a woman and her elderly mother being haunted by the mysterious presence dwelling within a hotel. After watching the movie’s first trailer, it’s easy to see why it left such a lasting impression.
The Eternal Daughter expands on the semi-autobiographical world of Hogg’s previous The Souvenir films with the story of Julie Hart (Tilda Swinton), an artist who decides to make a go of connecting with her elderly mother Rosalind (also Swinton) by traveling with her to a strange hotel. While Rosalind has fond childhood memories of the hotel from before it was renovated and turned into a business, in The Eternal Daughter’s first trailer, Julie can’t shake the feeling that there’s something menacing living in the building that wants something from her and her mother.
Obviously, things aren’t exactly what they seem around Julie and Rosalind, and the longer they stay at the hotel, the more strange, inexplicable things start happening, which is part of what makes The Eternal Daughter seem like an ideal film for those not ready to give up spooky season. But between The Eternal Daughter’s title and Swinton doing double duty as the film’s leads, it feels safe to bet that the most her performance and the secrets Rosalind’s hiding are going to be the most unnerving things about the movie when it hits theaters and on-demand platforms on December 2nd.