The Last Daughter

Things lost have value. The Last Daughter follows Brenda, an Aboriginal woman fostered into the care of a white Australian family. When they inquire about adoption, Brenda is suddenly returned to her first family. It leaves an adult Brenda remembering love and grieving for lost connections.

The Last Daughter is a documentary. Interviews with Brenda and members of her family inform the unfolding search. Emotions are intensified through recreations of Brenda’s memories, playing with her white sister and being returned to her Aboriginal family. Travel montages enhance a sense of movement from past to present, Brenda’s feet walking through water as she processes feelings, outback travel seeking stories to fill the gaps in memories lost through time.

As Brenda searches, she is like the woman in Luke 15:8-10. It takes courage to light a lamp, energy to search and patience to persist. Yet going back becomes, for Brenda, a way of moving forward. As the movie demonstrates, finding truth can set you free.

Individual stories are shaped by societal stories. Brenda’s journey includes researching the story of White Australia. For decades, the welfare agencies enacted government policies that removed children from Aboriginal families. The aim was the eradication of a culture. It takes courage to seek the truth by looking backwards.

One of the finer moments in recent Australian history was the launch of National Sorry Day in 1998. Held annually on 26 May, the day has provided ways for groups throughout Australia to remember the truth of Stolen Generations. In 2005, the day was renamed the National Day of Healing. Facing past truth was beginning to provide ways to seek reconciliation in the present and experience healing in the future.

Watching Brenda in The Last Daughter and experiencing National Sorry Day when I lived in Australia helped me understand some wisdom once shared by Mark MacDonald. Speaking in Aotearoa, then Indigenous Anglican Bishop in Canada, Mark defined mission as the making of relatives. It is an approach to Christian living that centres on kinship and creation.

Mission as making relatives helps me make sense of Romans 8:15, where God adopts children. Like Brenda’s white Australian parents, God seeks to provide security. Relatives are valued in the Gospels, with Jesus’ birth and ministry located in genealogies (Matthew 1:1-16; Luke 3:21-37). Making relatives includes all of creation, given the vision of salvation proclaimed in Colossians 1:20, where Christ acts to reconcile all things, “people and things, animals and atoms” (The Message). Mission as making relatives turns Christian gatherings into joyful celebrations in ways similar to the parties celebrating the finding of lost sheep, coins and sons in Luke 15.

The Last Daughter is available on Netflix. A Community Screening Licence is also available, providing a practical way for churches in Aotearoa to experience mission as the making of relatives. Churches can buy a licence, make healthy snacks and invite the community. Witness Brenda’s journey and experience the inclusive joy of making relatives in The Last Daughter’s final scenes.

The online website provides questions to encourage discussion or use the theme of making relatives in this film review.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is the author of "First Expressions" (2019) and writes widely in theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.