Adapted from Elena Ferrante’s novel of the same name, The Lost Daughter is surprisingly disconcerting, demanding to be viewed through sharp eyes. In her feature directorial debut, Maggie Gyllenhaal (who also wrote the screenplay) oozes confidence in her storytelling ability, deftly handling the film’s layered plot and characters. The Lost Daughter explores motherhood and the conflicted, complex emotions that are buried and surface for the women in the role. Nuanced, thoughtful, and deeply effective, Gyllenhaal’s movie is assuredly executed, uplifted by a strong, striking performance by Olivia Colman. 

The story follows Leda (Colman), an English professor and literature translator on holiday in a small Greek beach town. A mother of two daughters, Bianca and Martha, Leda is enjoying quiet time while she works, but it isn’t long before her peace is interrupted by a large, loud family from Queens who are vacationing at their family home. Leda’s eyes are immediately drawn to Nina (Dakota Johnson), a young mother who struggles to keep her daughter calm, happy, and occupied. After witnessing a fight between Nina and her controlling husband Toni (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), Leda helps the family find Nina’s daughter, triggering memories from Leda’s time as a young mother (Jessie Buckley) decades prior. The plot thickens when it's revealed the doll Nina's daughter can't live without was taken by Leda. 

Related: Olivia Colman's Top 10 Movie & TV Roles, Ranked According To IMDb

the lost daughter review
Dakota Johnson in The Lost Daughter

The Lost Daughter works because it’s observational — no matter how the tensions rise the longer Leda has the doll and no matter how many more details are given about Leda’s past actions as a mother, Gyllenhaal’s aim isn’t to judge. How to feel about everything that unfolds is up to the audience to decide, which makes the drama all the more gripping and somewhat morally ambiguous. There is no right or wrong here, only what is and isn’t. The Lost Daughter asks its audience to think outside the box, to examine their own biases and expectations about mothers and how they should or shouldn’t behave. This becomes especially obvious in the way Gyllenhaal keeps Leda’s husband (Jack Farthing) in the periphery of the story. He’s there, but not, with much of the pressure and obligations of parenting being silently forced upon Leda while he escapes judgement altogether. 

Gyllenhaal has a firm grasp on the story, meshing the past and present seamlessly to provide more context about Leda without losing sight of the story or turning toward unearned sentimentality. The Lost Daughter never gives itself an easy out, wading into the waters of hard truths about Leda, including her complicated feelings of guilt and resentment — crucially, her sense of freedom and relief when shedding certain responsibilities. Leda, like all women, is complex. She’s lost and selfish, proud of her work, frustrated, loving, angry, and just downright messy. Her role as a mother doesn’t make her a saint, but it does decrease the understanding she has of herself and heightens the multifaceted feelings she has about her life. Leda sees herself in Nina and perhaps also hopes she is someone who might understand that which she has never put into words before. 

the lost daughter review
Olivia Colman in The Lost Daughter

In this way, The Lost Daughter is deeply profound, a slow-burn that slowly unravels, revealing new details that change one’s opinion of Leda the longer the film goes on. And yet, Leda remains a character worthy of sympathy despite everything, which is the ultimate triumph of the film and which Gyllenhaal beautifully captures. The film is also unexpected. When it seems like the story will go in one direction (or reveal a bit of information about Leda’s state of mind), it pivots in surprising turns that never feel contrived. Leda is a tragic figure, and though some may see her as an antagonist in her own story, being forced to reckon with her past through Nina’s relationship with her own daughter makes the reading of her actions deeply layered and worth examining. Gyllenhaal’s camera lingers on every detail, every facial expression that deepens the story further. 

The mesmerizing (and, yes, often unnerving) elements of the film are uplifted by fantastic performances from the cast. Olivia Colman is, as always, phenomenal as Leda. Her body language positions Leda as a somewhat awkward, guarded, and firm individual who says so much with her eyes. Between showing Leda’s dizzy spells as an emotional extension of her mindset and standing up for herself against Dagmara Dominczyk’s Callie, Toni’s aunt, Colman has immense range in the role. Jessie Buckley is fabulous as the younger Leda, elevating emotionally heavy moments that bleed over into Colman’s own portrayal of the character. While Dakota Johnson gets far less to do, her role is crucial to the events of the film and the actress imbues Nina with a sense of loss, her eyes pleading for someone to understand and sympathize, which is understandably why her camaraderie with Leda is so pertinent. 

The Lost Daughter is a deconstruction of motherhood and what becomes of the women whose identities become folded into such a role, whether they can ever be free of it, and how society will look down on anyone who deviates from what’s expected of them as a maternal figure. Gyllenhaal expertly handles these themes, leaving a strong impression as a first-time director. Leda clings to the doll, a symbol of generational expectations of motherhood passed down to little girls. And while she might not understand the reasons for why she does, The Lost Daughter paints an unforgettable, intricate, and nuanced portrait of Leda, one that is so utterly human and a true character study that resonates emotionally. 

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The Lost Daughter released in select theaters on December 17 and will stream on Netflix starting December 31. It's 121 minutes long and is rated R for sexual content/nudity and language.

This review was originally published on October 19 in congruence with the 2021 Middleburg Film Festival.

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