The Lost Daughter Movie Review

After watching, it’s not a shock to me to learn that “The Lost Daughter” is being considered for several Academy Awards. It’s visually alluring and captivating. Olivia Colman holds the audience’s attention almost totally alone, proving that it’s the action that makes a film, not constant dialogue. ​

It takes a sensational director that understands the material they’re working with to pull that off. I believe that Maggie Gyllenhaal just demonstrated she’s now in that category. It makes sense that she knew the story inside and out since she also wrote the screenplay. That screenplay is based on the novel by Elena Ferrante, as well. This is Gyllenhaal’s feature directorial debut. The film is so good that I can’t wait to see where her talents taker her next.

Her protagonist is Leda (Colman), a college professor taking a vacation on the beach. As the film moves along, you begin to see how deeply troubled this woman is. If you wondered why she’d be on vacation alone, it doesn’t take long to learn she not only prefers it that way but so does those who know her best. Regardless, Leda at least feigns being put together when anyone is nearby.

After some time goes by, the wallflower begins watching a family who has set up near her perfect spot on the beach. Yes, they’re disturbing her. Yes, she makes them aware of that eventually, but there are reasons for her interest in them regardless.
Those reasons start to creep into the storyline, and you become much more aware of a specific type of mania that may have kept Leda distant from her loved ones. She becomes absorbed in some members of the family, daring to set up their umbrella near hers.

She’s mainly obsessed with the goings-on of a young mother, Nina, played by Dakota Johnson. Nina, young and naïve enough to still need assistance from her own family, isn’t the mother of the year.
Gyllenhaal takes moments such as Nina falling asleep while her very young child plays in the water, as an opportunity to show us, using flashbacks, what Leda was like as a mother. She was, more or less, going through the motions. She was indifferent. Leda says the line “Children are a crushing responsibility” as a chilling warning, but as she observes what she no longer has, you can see Leda is taken back to a time when she was a young mother. Does she regret decisions she once made?

As most children do, Nina’s daughter has a doll she takes everywhere. After an afternoon nap, she wakes up to the doll on the beach, but the child missing. In a compelling twist, the child is found, but then the doll goes missing.
A conversation between Nina and Leda brings us to another flashback, offering the information that Leda was not only a neglectful mother, but a frighteningly detached and even angry one. She wasn’t even willing to kiss a ‘boo-boo’ for her crying daughter.
Leda later admits to Nina that’s she’s an ‘unnatural mother’ after she reveals something terrible she had done. Unnatural is about the kindest way to put it.

Okay, telling you more about this story would be an injustice. See this for the performances and the unusual script that dares confess that sometimes it’s the woman who can’t accept having to have a child. It’s not a pleasant thought, but it happens nonetheless.

*Releases in select theaters 12/17/21; streams on Netflix 12/31/21.