Joanna Hogg’s ‘The Eternal Daughter’ Getting Day/Date VOD and Theatrical Release in December

A24 has decided to release Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter” on VOD and in theaters on December 2nd. Why? Well, because, much like Hogg’s ’Souvenir’ films, it probably won’t make much money at the box-office so why not take advantage of the positive reviews by making it available for home viewers as well.

Fact of the matter is that Hogg has a very niche following and “The Eternal Daughter,” which I saw at TIFF, is really a nothingburger of a film. Well-crafted, sometimes eloquent, but amounting to absolutely nothing in the end. A trailer was released by A24 this morning.

Hogg’s cinema is most definitely for acquired tastes. I’m more inclined to like her earlier stuff, like “Exhibition,” and “Archipelago,” but she really broke through with the ‘Souvenir’ movies — that second one was quite good, actually.

Hogg premiered “The Eternal Daughter,” at Venice this past September. The reviews were decent enough, but nowhere near the acclaim of her ‘Souvenir’ films. It currently has a 73 on Metacritic (based on 18 reviews).

This film won’t break barriers like her previous two features. It will probably be just as distancing an experience for regular audiences as any other Hogg film.

I wrote back at Cannes 2021:

One thing some detractors of “The Souvenir” films may not get, or maybe they do and just don’t care, is that they purposely meander. Every mundane gesture or stilted silence in these two chapters seems to come straight from the personal experiences of its director Joanna Hogg. That may not be enough to convince some that these are a great set of movies, but, hey, at least those naysayers can understand what all the fuss is about and why critics are gushing non-stop over them.

The British filmmaker is once again reuniting with Tilda Swinton for the A24-produced “The Eternal Daughter.” This latest film is said to be a ghost story — shot in secret during lockdown — and produced by Martin Scorsese. Following a middle-aged daughter and her elderly mother who must confront long-buried secrets of their past, this one is sure to be a true original.