The Eternal Daughter

A dreadfully dull ghost story starring Tilda Swinton as a woman caring for her elderly mother on a nostalgic trip to a countryside manor.

“The Eternal Daughter” is one of the most boring film experiences I’ve had in a long time. I’ve grown more attuned to slow movies that eschew traditional narrative storytelling as I’ve gotten older. But this isn’t slow, it’s inert.

I don’t often give out 5-star reviews and even less frequently 1-star reviews. I’m giving this 1½ only because it features the great Tilda Swinton. She’s the sort of unique actress people say they’ll watch in anything — and if they watch her in this, you know they really mean it.

It’s written and directed by Joanna Hogg, whose two previous efforts, “The Souvenir” and its sequel, both centered on a young filmmaker who’s an autographical stand-in for herself. I missed them both, but from what I’ve gathered “Daughter” is the unofficial third leg of a trilogy, a dreamy ghost story that takes place in an English countryside manor many years later.

Swinton, who played the mother, Rosalind, in “The Souvenir: Part II,” plays her again in this film, and also the daughter, Julie, now middle-aged. The daughter was portrayed by Honor Swinton Byrne, Tilda’s real-life daughter, in the first two movies. Tilda Swinton has become known for playing multiple roles in a bunch of her films, and I confess I’ve always found it rather gimmicky and artificial.

It is here, too.

If anything, Hogg accentuates the artifice by not using any split-screen or CGI to make it seem like the women share the same space. In fact, they never appear in the same frame except once, very briefly, near the end. Instead, it’s a lot of cutting back-and-forth as they converse.

We almost feel as if Swinton is running off-camera between each shot to switch out her gray wig and age makeup.

The premise is that Julie is bringing her mom back to the remote mansion where she spent part of World War II as girl to reminisce a few days, culminating in Rosalind’s birthday. Her husband died a couple of years ago, her health is failing and Julie wants to savor this time together — as well as work on a potential script about her mother.

The manor, now a place for guests to have some quiet time, is beautiful and spooky. They do not encounter any other guests. The young woman employee (Carly-Sophia Davies), who seems to have the run of the place, clip-clops about in high heels and seems barely interested in attending to Julie’s meek requests. Later, Julie will encounter Bill (Joseph Mydell), the older night attendant, who is much more welcoming.

Rosalind is of the generation where people don’t really talk much about themselves, especially their troubles and disappointments. Their conversations tend to be clipped and covered up with a lot of niceties, like calling each other “darling” and virtually everything in the hotel is referred to as “lovely.” In one of the few consequential exchanges, Julie learns about the death of a family member during the war.

The mansion appears to be haunted, or at least Julie is seeing things that make her think it is. She hears open windows clapping through the night when there are none. A barely-seen face appears in a window. The wind is constantly moaning, accentuated by the musical score (uncredited) with rising and falling strings that feels like it came out of a 1940s romantic tragedy.

We watch the women eat, have walks in the garden, do their toiletries — such as the way Rosalind picks tiny little pills (“helpers,” she calls them) out of silver box. They talk without really saying very much. A few times Julie has disjointed conversations with her husband because the cell reception is spotty. Her mother’s spaniel, Louis, gets lost and has to be looked for.

And… that’s it. That’s the whole movie.

It’s all very Gothic and moody and pleasing to the eye. And as interesting as burnt toast.

There is a surprise, though it will surprise no one. I’m not sure if it’s even meant to be surprising.

Perhaps my lack of seeing “The Souvenir” movies subtracted from my experience in watching “The Eternal Daughter.” But I don’t think so. My guess is Hogg wanted to make a movie about her mother but couldn’t figure out a way to do so, and instead made this one — sort of the way “Adaptation” is a film about a screenwriter unable to translate a book to screen. So even the inability to make art can produce great art.

But a critic’s first duty is to review the movie that was made, not the one they wished they had. By any yardstick I can grasp, “The Eternal Daughter” is one of the dullest cinematic experiences I’ve had.