Daughter 2023. A young woman runs and a pickup truck follows her. You can’t see who’s driving the truck, because the two people inside it are wearing face-covering gas masks. They grab the runner and forcibly subdue her. The opening credits play throughout, and they don’t seem to leave anybody out. Soon after, the movie begins. This scene, and almost every one after it, was shot on 16mm film and in surprisingly long takes.
“Daughter,” an eccentric cult/hostage thriller, follows the two mask-wearing kidnappers, who self-identify as Father (Casper Van Dien) and Mother (Elyse Dinh), and their would-be victim, whom they call Daughter (Vivien Ngô). Father tells Daughter why he’s chained her up in his garage: his impressionable Son (Ian Alexander) needs a sibling, just for two more years. (It’s unclear why this matters despite a negligible explanation about Son and Daughter’s two-year age gap.) All will be well if Daughter fulfills her familial obligations and role-plays along with her new family. Father might otherwise turn violent, and while he says he doesn’t want to, the opening chase suggests otherwise.
