Direction: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Country: USA
Maggie Gyllenhaal is best known as an actress (Secretary, 2002; Crazy Heart, 2009; Sherrybaby, 2006) but turned director last year with The Lost Daughter, a psychological drama that deals with motherhood, depression, and life choices. The film, an adaptation of a novel by Elena Ferrante, stars the phenomenal Olivia Colman (The Favourite, 2018; The Father, 2020) in the central role, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, Ed Harris, and Gyllenhaal’s husband, Peter Sarsgaard.
Leda Caruso (Colman), a middle-aged professor from Cambridge, Massachusetts, takes a break by the sea, spending a few summer days in Greece. While at the beach, she observes everyone around her, but her gaze stares at a three-year-old girl and her beautiful young mother, Nina (Johnson), in whom she finds fragments of herself. Leda is deeply affected by remorse and shows a seemingly incomprehensible behavior that can be funny, sad and monstrously quirky at the same time. She can leave a subtle sense of discomfort lying around, and that works well as the oppressive stuff here is often disguised as lighthearted. The narrative holds our attention with flickering stimuli to the point that’s difficult to tell where the story is heading. That’s where most of the film’s spell lives.
Gyllenhaal’s storytelling process intertwines recent events with a mix of painful and thrilling flashbacks, keeping The Lost Daughter steady for most of its time. In some cases, the dramatic intensity doesn’t reach the expected levels - like in the very last interaction of Leda with Nina - but the film provides delicate material for thought and discussion. While the slow build of the story functioned properly, there was also a suddenness to some events that was extremely captivating. And then, Ms. Colman does the rest.
