Daughter’s Daughter (2024) TIFF Review: Sylvia Chang is back!

Taiwanese legend Sylvia Chang shines in this realist bittersweet story of love and loss from the perspective of a mother. Director Huang Xi crafts a brilliant image of capturing the emotions of being a mother who deals with her two very different daughters, while simultaneously pursuing her independence.

Jin Aixia (Sylvia Chang) has two daughters— Fan Zuer (Eugenie Liu), who was brought up in Taipei, and Emma (Karena Lam), who was raised in New York by adoptive parents. Both were unaware of each other’s existence until they were adults.

Fan Zuer is tomboyish, erratically dressed, determined, sentimental and madly in love with her more elegantly dressed girlfriend, Zhou Jiayi (Tracy Chou). Emma is reserved and relatively distant, yet caring and yearning for her biological mother’s affection.

The story begins in 2018 when Jin Aixia aka Ai suffers a leg injury after trying to assist her own mother, Shen Yan-hua (Alannah Ong). Possibly needing surgery, the family rushes to the hospital one by one and makes small talk. Emma practically helps her mother through regular activities, while her grandmother laments her decision to let her daughter help her with the particular activity that caused the accident. After a while, Fan Zuer, accompanied by Jiayi, shows up and awkwardly attempts to make conversation with Ai, as they had fought recently.

Shook by the fact that her mother has another daughter, Zuer is disturbed that Ai kept her presence a secret for such a long time. The agitated young woman finds it difficult to understand the reasoning behind her mother’s actions and inactions as a parent. Meanwhile, Jiayi coaxes Zuer to be cordial to everyone considering the circumstances, while she poses as Zuer’s colleague as Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage only in 2019.

Fast-forward to 2024, Zuer and Jiayi who officially revealed that they are a couple to family and friends, reside in New York. They go through IVF procedures as they want to raise their own kid. Mother Ai remains skeptical of the young couple’s desire to have a child, but despite the occasional arguments, she constantly speaks to Zuer. As the IVF process causes a kit of pain, Zuer relies on her mother to console her while jokingly commenting on her inability to cope under pressure.

But all this changes when Ai receives the worst phone call a mother could ever receive— her daughter met with a fatal accident. What follows is the strength-through-pain journey of a bereaving mother who has to decide what to do with a healthy, perfectly viable embryo left behind by her daughter Zuer.

The realistic progress of the storyline chases Ai through formidable courage in the face of severe heartbreak. Sylvia Chang is perfect as Ai, portraying true emotions in this film. Eugene Liu is an actress with incredible potential and how she embodied Fan Zuer’s character was outstanding.The film is slightly slow, probably because it is so realistically oriented. It is also a difficult watch dealing with sensitive topics like LGBTQ+, societal acceptance, societal expectations, IVF, adoption, etc. For those who have experienced such situations personally, it can be a tear-jerker.

Overall, I liked it. And many others did too, which is why the film achieved an Honourable Mention for the Platform Award at TIFF this year.