Worth: $11.50
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Cast:
Casper Van Dien, Elyse Dinh, Vivien Ngô, Ian Alexander
Intro:
… hinges on an atmosphere of confusion and anxiety.
Casper Van Dien gives a chilling performance as “Father”, the tyrannical captor of Mother (Elyse Din), Son (Ian Alexander), and now Daughter (Vivien Ngô) — the latest in a long line of daughters who have come before her, welcomed into the family with a chain around her ankle and a sack over her head. Father’s goal is to keep his family safe; he swears no harm will come to Daughter if she just plays nice for the coming months until Son’s birthday, when he will become an adult and then all this will be over.
As a feature-length debut from director Corey Deshon, Daughter is a solid offering with a strong cast at the core. Elyse Dinh is sympathetic and believable in her anguish, and Ian Alexander is as vibrant as they are unnerving in their performance as Father’s beloved Son. The story itself, however, borders on non-sensical, teetering towards absurd.
Deshon’s script certainly adheres to the school of “less is more” – dropping breadcrumbs of Father’s plan and hinting at the depth of his psychopathic delusions without ever fully explaining his true motives. The upside to never opting for a full reveal is that we avoid any overtly unrealistic villain monologues, instead Deshon’s nightmare hinges on an atmosphere of confusion and anxiety.
David Strother’s jittery score at times tends to overpower the action, heavily hinting to audiences that we ought to be jumping in our seats here or gasping in terror there, but ultimately what works best for stoking that sense of dread are the moments where silence is allowed to linger until it becomes as claustrophobic as the four suffocatingly beige walls of Father’s house.
Watching Van Dien boil in impotent rage as Daughter pushes his buttons is more gripping than any inevitable violent outburst. As the ever-present tension and uncertainty builds between them, Vivien Ngô is truly masterful in her use of physical expression, managing to convey Daughter’s wilful resilience in scenes where barely a word is permitted past her lips.
This twisted tale of a picture-perfect Stockholm Syndrome family finds its inspiration in far too many true crime stories to name, all the more horrific for the element of truth threaded in between the lines of elaborate fantasy. As familiar as the premise may be, there’s just enough unsettling originality to stop Daughter from feeling played out or overly predictable.
