Daphne (2017) User Reviews

Artful Character Study

[derekmgb · 7/10 · 30 January 2020]

Ignore all the reviews calling it boring, empty etc, written I assume by people that like explosions and flashing things but can't invest a little bit of effort in trying to appreciate a film that attempts to provoke thought and discussion

Performances are excellent especially from Emma Beecham, I sometimes had to remind myself this was a scripted film, so natural was her portrayal of Daphne - I mean is she really just Daphne filmed fly on the wall?? Brilliant

I loved her kind of offhand 'acting' complete with lines delivered so life like it was hard to tell if she had just come up with that stuff - and the direction where actors dialogue is left to happen in a very natural way - stunted, overlaps, talk overs - hard to act, and you can see some actors struggling with it, defaulting to more polished delivery.

I was drawn in by Daphne's frustrating, abrasive character and her descent in to self loathing - she's not easy to like, but that's the point - why is she like this, why does she not care about herself or much else

The film has a few clunky parts, like the psychiatrist for example, and some of the script and character development is under cooked but maybe that kind of fits with the impressionistic feel - over all the film offers real rewards for those willing to really watch and listen

Oddly idling, even for a character study

[I_Ailurophile · 5/10 · 26 June 2021]

"'Daphne' is the vibrant character portrait of a young woman on the threshold of a much-needed change." A film premise can hardly be more vague, yet that one sentence is a fair reflection of the plot. This is a movie that's greatly understated, with only scarce moments of vividness punctuating the runtime.

Emily Beecham draws every last vestige of nuance that she can out of her starring role as the title character. Daphne is morose, and somewhat despondent, in her directionless candor. She eventually shows just enough real honestly to reveal at least part of the reason behind her jaded agitation. But what's funny is that she doesn't seem drastically different from other characters in her demeanor, even as the film works tirelessly to set her apart.

This is curious. There are very few shots that don't center on Daphne, and even as she's consistently going nowhere in her life, it's a good guess that at least least half the movie is her walking or taking transportation to one place or another, or no place at all. It feels like 'Daphne' has a message it wants to say, something profound, but it stops short of meaningfully doing so. Like the character it focuses on, the film mostly just seems to abide, without any particular rhyme or reason. Maybe I'm just not properly attuned to pick up on its subtleties, but I watch this with an open mind, and no expectations, and just feel flummoxed.

I think the most I can say is that I do recognize myself as a viewer in Daphne. Having myself struggled with depression for years, I gather the same questioning in Daphne's distant self-isolation of what she's doing with her life, or what it's all for. Beyond that smudged mirror, I admit I'm having a hard time finding especial value here. I feel bad even saying that, but I'm kind of at a loss.

It's well made in a technical sense. It's not outright bad. But I simply don't know what it is that this movie wants to be, any more than its protagonist knows what she wants to be. 'Daphne' is a film to watch for those viewers with extraordinary patience, who appreciate the most unglamorous and uneventful of character studies. For any more general audience - well, good luck, and maybe you'll discern something here that I missed.

fine character study

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 22 January 2018]

Daphne (Emily Beecham) is a woman living in London. She's a struggling sous chef. She has many one night stands. She has drifted from her friends. She's estranged from her mother who is revealed to have cancer. She does drugs but mostly she's a drunk. One night, she's in a corner store when a robber comes in and stabs the cashier.

This is a fine character study. However, I do want more from this movie. It needs a second main character. Probably, it needs the mother to have more screen time. It needs to be a character relationship study as well as a character study. Other relationships could have been the main subject matter. This movie drifts. I don't mind drifting through her life but it could have been more.

Timeless

[ChorleyRobbie · 6/10 · 28 September 2017]

Daphne is a timeless British film. By which I mean it could have pretty much been made at any time in the last 50 years, and be just as 'meh.' It's one of those films that turns up on the telly and you look at the fashion and the streets but wonder why you're actually watching. It's a slight tale of a rather unlikable lonely girl who doesn't really know what to do with her life. Emily Beecham gives a believable performance but with a male writer and male director it is ultimately a bloke's fantasy idea of a 20something single girl about town. Everyone spouts their arch clever philosophies but anything that happens to Daphne doesn't really seem to affect her. That said, she's probably hardened by all those ghosts she used to hunt (which has clearly had an effect) and I applaud the film-maker's willingness to hold back Fred, Shaggy and Velma until the sequel.

Everything was there waiting or a great movie to emerge

[robperry11 · 6/10 · 1 September 2021]

This movie seemed to have all the components required to become a great movie had the writers spent a bit more time with the character Daphne's progress over the span of the film. Like another reviewer alluded to, the movie would take 2 steps forward and then 3 steps back. Felt like a merry-go-round at times ... just more of the same. I did enjoy the actors/actresses, and even the ones with the bit parts.

Good but wouldn't watch again

[emma965 · 7/10 · 1 August 2018]

This is the first film in a long time where a female is portrayed as very intelligent . Rubbishy plot / ending That's it.

Not as light as I thought from the trailer

[douglas-fraser · 6/10 · 30 December 2020]

My error looking for an upbeat romcom. But the acting was great, the portrayal of reality (place, time and emotions) was very believable. Daphne's transition, getting out of her considerable rut, is uplifting.

My wife and I enjoyed this show. :)

Like an empty fortune cookie

[fai-90469 · 4/10 · 29 September 2017]

I get it, not all characters have to go through great changes in a movie, but following such an unlikeable person for 90 minutes with no payoff at any time was a disappointment. Why did they cut all the interesting supporting characters loose? Are we supposed to feel as lost as Daphne feels? There where many opportunities to make this a way better film but I felt that it didn't go anywhere. Movie looked great at times though and the acting was good.

A fawn Naide near southwark

[Maurizio73 · 6/10 · 10 December 2017]

The 31 year old Daphne Vitale leads a free and unruly life: the day at work in a pub with a boss who besieges her with tender discretion, the night free for South London between alcohol, drugs and casual sex. His apparent sentimental indolence masks the anguish for the illness of a mother with whom he has a conflictive relationship and an emotional fragility that struggles to accept. A dramatic and unexpected event requires a moment of inevitable reflection and gradual change. The existential vocation drama with a strong social footprint is one of the most predictable qualities of independent cinema, forced to navigate between cash crunches and an authorial figure with the need to cash in at the first opportunity. If this is true for the already well-established Indie cinema of overseas (with more and more frequent concessions in the manner), it seems as desirable for that of a homeland of emerging directors who take advantage of a tax discount of a quarter of the taxation for a budget of which at least 10% spent within the borders of Her Majesty's Kingdom. Considerations inevitable, especially in times of Brexit, even for the debut Peter Mackie Burns who on one hand engages with the existential discomfort of a generation of many precariousness and that navigates to view and on the other with the need to make ends meet accounts of a talent immediately redeemable in the main festival festivals. The operation seems to have succeeded, at least in part, because of a register of captivating realism and calculated musical counterpoints as for the cute and sulky face of a handsome thirty-year-old redhead of a Sicilian father, who remains hooked from beginning to end along the daily wanderings in search of a self that pretends not to see reflected every morning in front of the mirror. The Anglo-Texan Emily Beecham holds very well the game (and the scene) fielding the fleeting lightness of the aquatic nymph dear to Apollo, in the inebriating dribbling of a love disengagement as a desperate attempt to escape an emotional responsibility with which it will be called to confront oneself in the inevitable predestination of an unexpected event: the aufbruch of a sudden rupture in the placid course of an indolent existence and which is a prelude to the geschehen of a forced restart. Unlike the emptiness of values ​​and the tragic nemesis faced by the tawny Keaton of Looking for Mr. Goodbar, the protagonist of this intimate drama from Southwark seems to know what he does not want but is definitely more afraid of what he wants (l 'concern for the health of a Buddhist mother who refuses the anticancer therapies, the sentimental commitment with a boy who does not take advantage of his hasty sexual availability and who looks at it with different eyes) and for whom the gradual awareness of an emotional gap it will be dictated both by chance and by a lightness of having become unsustainable. All according to script, in short, including the edifying picture of a human and social solidity relived in the domestic psychodrama of heroic behavior in favor of an industrious and warm North African immigration formed family that hardly chews English but knows the priceless human values ​​of hospitality and gratitude; Going home will be a person who has found a different reason for living at the sound of a Ba-ba-ba-ba by LouReed & Velvet Underground. Emily Beecham crowned best actress both in the sunny summer of the Edinburgh International Film Festival and in the winter frost of the Torino Film Festival 2017.

A glum allegory of modern Britain

[global_dan · 1/10 · 4 July 2020]

For an hour and a half, this film aimlessly wanders through the life of a Londoner who:

• pushes anyone who (inexplicably) expresses any tenderness or romantic interest away
• shows little more than mild interest or affection for a terminally ill parent
• appears unable to even enjoy the pleasures of illicit drugs or anonymous sex despite partaking frequently
• manages to chastise the victim of violence she has witnessed in their moment of greatest vulnerability
• blames everyone else for the feelings of emptiness

Is it a spoiler to say that nothing else happens? Ugh, save yourself 90 minutes.

Is life meaningless

[Jithindurden · 8/10 · 24 November 2017]

I have a friend who I always thought as a liberal version of myself who live as what other people think about him doesn't matter which is the only major difference I see between him and myself. While watching Daphne I was thinking here is a female version of him. So extending that in a way Daphne was a very relatable experience to me. Emily Beecham is incredible as the confused and miserable Daphne who quotes Zizak and Freud but doesn't know if that really means anything to her. Exposing her as almost a bitch character and slowly showing her life where she doesn't find any meaning and to an extent just want to run away from everything and doesn't want to find anything. The only problem I have with the film is that it ended too soon, they should have explored a bit more of her life and thoughts or maybe it was perfect and I just want life to be bigger than it is while it isn't and never really taking an initiative to make it just like Daphne.

Ok

[jennigee75 · 6/10 · 25 July 2018]

This was ok ..but there was no real story line unfortunately.

Hello...is there anyone in there?

[PipAndSqueak · 4/10 · 30 September 2017]

Somehow between the writer's idea through to the film script...the mis-casting and the not quite there direction, this story loses its point. At heart, this ought to be a tale about a well brought up girl who's gone off the rails and catapulted herself into a mental health hell hole. What we actually get to see is a stilted unrepresentative facsimile of a sixth form drama class attempt at film making. It is neither compelling nor so offensive that you walk out. It's all a bit blah and dull. The principle character has zero self awareness but we have no one elses point of view as a counter point. Only one actor gets his part right...walk on security guy David. He's a love. More of his story would have been nice but we are denied that. In summary there is nothing here to see.

Seriously

[benmarns · 29 July 2018]

Just wasted an hour an a half of my life. I have never see a film before where absolutely nothing happens......

Some interesting themes

[normanhouse-15423 · 7/10 · 26 April 2022]

It was an interesting film with much to like about it, even if it was a bit depressing at times. Maybe a bit too much time was spent on Daphne and not on other characters and how they related to her. The plot was a bit aimless and just focused on Daphne and her coming to terms with certain aspects of her life.

Portrait of a woman no longer interesting

[paul2001sw-1 · 6/10 · 4 October 2022]

In Peter Mackie Burns's film the eponymous heroine Daphne is a woman just turned thirty still living the life she probably thought cool ten years previously, but now with increasing sullenness and ferocity. Daphne is understandably bitter after life keeps giving her lemons, but she isn't very interesting. I'd like to have seen the character five years earlier, perhaps somewhat nicer and less self-destructive, watching the vanishing of hope through some combination of bad luck and bad judgement. The film we get ends with some predictable moments offering the possibility of reconciliation and redemption, but I didn't feel these to be fully justified by the story. I'm sure the world is full of Daphnes, but I found it hard to care about this one.

Daphne is not very special

[qeter · 4/10 · 29 October 2017]

Seen at the Viennale 2017: Seems to be a new trend. To follow female young women with close-up camera through their daily life's. Has something to do with new camera techniques, I assume. Because faces of people can tell stories of their own, somebody can make easily a "character study" instead of a well told story with interesting characters. I appreciate that such movies are a psychological help for up-growing young girls (I hope they find their way to pictures like this). But for an adult they are quite boring. Daphne is the typical woman, more on the conservative side of thinking. A girl of our day. I can watch character studies of them all around me, without going to the movies...

Not every film is a winner

[taedirish · 4/10 · 9 November 2020]

This film was marked under the comedy genre but the only thing funny about this film was the joke the creators played on anyone thinking it would be an entertaining film. The first thing that caught my attention was the music. Unless this film was intended to be set in the 90s, I couldn't understand the protagonist's fascination with awful 90s pop music. That being said, the film is entirely too British to have ever stood a chance in the mainstream. The dialogue is basically just characters rattling off a bunch of British slang but not in a good way like films such as Snatch. The funniest thing in the movie was when the thief held up the store with a yellow pairing knife that I could only imagine he got from his mom's kitchen. If the point of the film was to portray some girl's existential crisis, it failed. If it was meant to just entertain, it also failed. Overall, this film was a failure.

Nothing happened much apparently that's not so

[junefoster · 8/10 · 12 July 2020]

Just watched this great little film in the USA it would be considered a great indie flick It was a bit of a slow burner to start but I really enjoyed Emily beechams performance to say there was no ending was ridiculous . I She was almost like an angstY teenager to begin with but after being witness to a stabbing and going off the rails I think shefinally found herself by the end of the movie . Almost ironic that I started trying to watch wild rose a highly praised film about another angsty young woman I just couldn't like the character and turned off after about 20 mins I had taped daphne and enjoyed it much more worth a watch .

Pointless

[stegasaurob · 1/10 · 23 February 2020]

There's some fantastic acting in this, particularly from Emily Beecham, but the whole film is utterly pointless. It's almost as if they didn't think they needed a plot or a script. Which wouldn't be so bad if the central character was more interesting, but as a character study it's way off. She's supposed to be 31 but she looks 21 and acts about 16. Maybe that's the point? I don't know and I really don't care.

If you think there's something inherently interesting or original about watching an selfish, immature, narcissistic, emotionally disengaged young middle-class guardian reader snorting coke in a variety of sarf London toilets then this is possibly the film for you. If not then I wouldn't bother.

Daphne, Fleabag and the rise of comedies that focus on self-destructive women

[sharansrinivas-g · 4 September 2020]

A woman in her 30s who's rude, obnoxious, drugs and alcohol consuming, promiscuous, bigoted and also hates her mother.

Who does this remind you of? If you thought Fleabag, you're right. But, in this context, we're talking about Daphne. This low-budget comedy prances around with its tropes that Fleabag is known for. However, unlike Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Emily Beecham does not have that wide-eyed wicked stare that Fleabag is famous for. She's rather tamed. But, her attitude nonetheless yells "I'm a b****."

I usually like to watch films such as Daphne, ones that don't have a concrete plot and simply follows its character(s) wander about. Daphne however was painfully clear that it wasn't an original idea or even a better interpretation of the self-destructive woman.

I did enjoy Daphne's reaction to a crime that happens in a small grocery store. But, this was early in the film and I still had high hopes. It all comes down crashing.

I think the whole "self-destructive woman" concept can be tapped into to create more morally and ethically ambiguous films. It's just that Daphne didn't do it for me despite a decent performance from Emily Beecham

Snoozefest

[MrsPAK · 2/10 · 25 November 2019]

Boring story, unsympathetic characters. I cared nothing for anything about this movie. 30 - 40 minutes in and it was well past time to turn it off. Waste of time.

It Tries to Hard!

[Sylviastel · 5/10 · 25 June 2019]

The cast included Geraldine James OBE, a well known British actress, who played Daphne's mother. The film is okay but not very entertaining. The film tries to hard to be a character driven film but falls flat. We never know what Daphne wants in life after a near tragedy. She does seem to want connection to another human being.

I really enjoyed it.

[newtonemilyr · 8/10 · 13 November 2019]

It really touched on a bit of what it's like to have PTSD, and to try to navigate a high pressure job while trying to find connection with other people/have relationships. It really felt like it hit on human experience pretty well, and it felt like it told some truth while asking hard questions about life.

I felt understood while watching it, and don't really see Daphne as some quirky person, but someone who is traumatized.

I feel like the film isn't afraid to take a rest from telling you exactly what is going on in Daphne's head at every minute and turn and let you breathe with the main character as she tries to find her way through coping.

As for the therapist, I feel like being that directive right off the bat would be a bit off putting for any client. Jumping right in and talking about the trauma can certainly be re-traumatizing to say the least. So that didn't feel realistic at all. I understand wanting to push forward with that part of the narrative because Good Will Hunting is already a film, but I felt it could have been expounded upon more.

What the...

[zuzana-krokosova7 · 1/10 · 11 June 2019]

She (the main character) is 31. She obviously has issues. Everyone does! But the behaviour was like 15 years old. I was only able to watch it for 30 minutes and not more because I was afraid that the ending will be same s**t as the rest of the movie. She was so tremendously annoying that it hurt my eyes and my soul.